tone steps, and they shone in the moonlight with a mottling
of hazardous shadows. I mounted them and went into the huge assembly
hall on the first floor. I heard the awkward, self-conscious benediction
and adjournment of the meeting--for they were all young fellows, and had
not yet learned to be entirely glib towards their meetings--and stood
aside to let them pass out. As the first of them went through the door
and out upon the campus, they burst into the giddy laughs which
moonlight conjures--and I heard them singing foolish glees--snatches of
song that were utterly pagan and gleeful, and far from the heated
stuffiness of their prayer meeting. They seemed to have found their
Kindly Light more easily in the open.

The man for whom I now waited had always been the leader of my class;
this year, he was the idol of the entire university. Captain of
football, a 'varsity baseball man, he had the finest, sincerest
character that I had ever known. He was not merely popular, in our
undergraduate sense. Underclassmen worshipped him from afar, and
upperclassmen, who knew him and the life that he led, loved him and
respected him with a love and respect which few men can ever win.

He and I had become friendly, lately. It was due, perhaps, to the fact
that we now belonged to the same senior society. Before, I had
worshipped from afar; now I knew him well and warmly--and, as I look
back upon my college life, I am amazed to realize how much of his
influence went into the making of it.

As he came out, I noticed how his broad shoulders filled the doorway and
blocked out its light completely. But his face was above the shadows,
and I had a sudden sense of comfort from the resolute kindliness that
shone upon it.

"Fred," I said, "I want your help on something."

As president of the Y. M. C. A. he had a room allotted him in the
building where he might sleep. I knew that he had a suite in his
fraternity house, too--but he preferred to stay here, for some reason,
in this smaller, simpler place, where he would be nearer his duties.

When he had me in the plain little den, sitting before the miniature
wood fire which he heaped with broken twigs, he sat me down and gave me
a few minutes of tactful silence. I was thinking it all out. I wanted to
tell it to him fairly, concisely, with no imprecations, and yet with no
weakening of attitude. Then I did tell it, simply, just as the two boys
had told it to me.

I saw Fred's face grow troub