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Show EOM KANDOLPfl cnoniL LILLIAN CHESTER t r T IEI 1UU3TI&TED C.D.RHODES ' 1 1. ing senses, and in which he sat, shocked, stunned, disbelieving his own ears. Why, he had known, as positively, positive-ly, and more positively, than if she had told him, that there was a perfect response in her to the great desire which throbbed within him. It had come to him from her like the wavering waver-ing of soft music, music which had blended with his own pulsing diapason in a melody so subtle that it drowned the senses to languorous swooning; it had come to him with the delicate far-off pervasiveness of the birth of a new star in the heavens; it had come to him as a fragrance, as a radiance, as the beautiful tints of spring blossoms, blos-soms, as something infinitely stronger, and deeper, and sweeter, than the sleep of death. That tremendous and perfect fitness and accord with him he felt in her hand even now. "I can't, Tod," she said again, and neither one noticed that shu had unconsciously un-consciously used the namu she had heard from his mother, and which sht had unconsciously linked with her thoughts of him. "There could nevet be a unity of purpose in us," and now, for the first time, she gently vithdrew her hand. "I could never be In sympathy sym-pathy with your work, nor you with my views. Have you noticed that we have never held a serioua dispute ovei any topic but one?" He drew a chair before her, and took her hand again, but this time he patted it between his own hs if it wer a child's. "Gail, dear, that is an obstacle which will melt away. There was a time when 1 felt as you do. The time will come when you, too, will change." "You don't understand," she gently told him. "I believe in God the Crea tor; the maker of my conscience; my friend and my father. I am in vo i doubt, no quandary, no struggle be tween faith and disbelief. I eee my way clearly, and there are ao thorns to cut for me. I shall never change." He looked at her searchingly for a moment, and then his face grew grave; but there was no coldness in it, nor any alteration in the blueuess of his eyes. "I sha1 pray for you," he said, with simp'e faith. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Arly's arm clutched tightly in his own, he then disappeared. As they walked rapidiy away, Arly looked up at him in bewilderment; then she suddenly hugged herself closer to him with a jerk. As they went out through the carriage entrance, she skipped. It was good to see Allison, big. strong, forceful, typical of the city and its mighty deeds. His eye had lighted with something more than pleasure as Gail stepped out through the gates or the station; something so infinitely more than pleasure that her eyes dropped, and her hand trembled as she felt that same old warm thrill of his clasp. He was so overwhelming in his physical dominance. He took immediate im-mediate possession of her, standing by while she greeted her uncle and aunt and other friends, and beaming with justifiably proud proprietorship. Gail had laughed as she recognized that attitude. Allison was really a big man, one born to command, to sway things, to move and shift and rearrange re-arrange great forces; and that, of course, was his manner in everything. She flushed each time she looked in his direction; for he never removed his gaze from her; bold, confident, supreme. su-preme. When a man like that is kind and gentle and considerate, when he is tender and thoughtful and full of devotion, he is a big man indeed! Rev. Smith Boyd was at the steps of the Sargent house to greet her, and her heart leaped as she recognized another of the dear familiar faces. This was her world, after all; not that world of her childhood. How different differ-ent the rector looked; or was it that she had needed to go away in order to judge her friends anew? His eyes were different; deeper, steadier and more penetrating into her own; and yes, bolder. She was forced to look away from them for a moment. There seemed a warm eagerness in his greeting, greet-ing, as if everything in him were drawing draw-ing her to him. With a rapidity which was a marvel to all her girl friends, Gail had slipped upstairs and into a creamy lace evening eve-ning frock without having been missed; and she was in thia acutely harmonious setting when Rev. Smith Boyd called, with his beautiful mother on his arm. The beautiful mother was in an exceptional flurry of delight tc see Gail, and kissed that charming young lady with clinging warmth. The rector's eyes were even more strikingly strik-ingly changed than they had been when he had first met her on the steps, as they looked on Gail in her creamy lace, and after she had read that new intense look in his eyes for the rector, and directed the most of her attention to Allison, who was less disconcerting. Allison, casting an occasional oc-casional glance at the intense young rector, seemed preoccupied tonight; and Mrs. Helen Davies, pausing to take her sister Grace with her, walked up the stairs with a forefinger tapping at her well-shaped chin. She seemed to have reversed places with her sister sis-ter tonight, for Mrs. Sargent was supremely su-premely happy, while Helen Davies was doing the family worrying. She could have bidden Allison adieu had she waited a very few minutes. He was a man who had spent a lifetime life-time in linking two and two together, and he abided unwaveringly by his deductions. de-ductions. There was no mistaking the nature of the change which was so apparent ap-parent in Rev. Smith Boyd; but Allison, Alli-son, after careful thought on the matter, mat-ter, was able to take a comparatively early departure. "I'll see you tomorrow, Gail," he observed ob-served finally. Rising, be crossed to where she sat, and, reaching into her lap. he took both her hands. He let her arms swing from his clasp, and, looking down into her eyes with smiling smil-ing regard, he gave her hands an extra pressure, which sent, for the hun dredth time that night, a surge of color over her face. Rev. Smith Boyd, blazing down at that scene, suddenly felt something crushing under his hand. It was the light runner board of the music rack, and three hairs, which had lain in placid place at the crown of his head, suddenly popped erect. Ten thousand years before, had these three been so grouped, Allison would have felt a stone ax on the back of his neck, but as it was he passed out unmolested, nodding carelessly to the young rector, rec-tor, and bestowing on Gail a parting look which was the perfection of easy assurance. Rev. Smith Boyd wasted not a minute min-ute In purposeless hesitation or idle preliminary conversation. "Gail!" he said, in a voice which chimed of all the love songs ever written, writ-ten, which vibrated with all the love passion ever breathed, which pleaded with the love appeal of all the dominant domi-nant forces since creation. Gail bad resumed her seat on the end of the piano bench, and now he reached down and took her hand, and held It. unresisting. She was weak and iimp, and she averted her eyes from the burning gaze w'hich beamed down on her. Her breath was fluttering, and the hand which lay in her lap was cold and trembling. "Gail, I love you ! " He bent his head and kissed her hand. The touch was fire, and she felt her blood leap to it. "Gail, dear," and his voice was like the suppressed crescendo cres-cendo of a tremendous organ flute; "I come to you with the love of a man I come to you with the love of one inspired to do great deeds, not just to lay them at your feet, but because you are in the world!" He bent lower, and tried to gaze into the brown eyes under those fluttering lashes. He held her hand more tightly to him, clasped it to his breast, oppressed her with the tremendous desire of his whole being to draw her to him, and hold her close, as one and a part of him for all time to come, mingling and merg ing them into one ecstatic harmony. "Gail! Oh. Gail, Gail!" There was a cry in that repetition of her name, almost an anguish. She stole an upward glance at him, her face pale, her beautiful lips half parted, part-ed, and in her depthless brown eyes, alive now with a new light which had been born within her, there was no forbiddance, though she dropped them hastily, and bent her head still lower. She had made herself an eternal part of him just then, had he but seized upon th.-.t unspoken assent, and taken her in his arms, and breathed to her of the love of man for woman, the love I .i ih'MTM 1 1-4 I SYNOPSIS. 11 At a vestry meeting of the Market Equate church Gail Harnent tells Uev. ' Smith Boyd that Market Square church 18 apparently a lucrative business enterprise. enter-prise. Allison takes Gall riding in J i is motor car. She llnds cold disapproval in the eyes of Rev. Smith Uoyil. Allison starts a campaign for consolidation and control of the entire transportation system sys-tem of the world. Gall bee omes popular. Allison Kalns control of transcontinental traffic anil arranges to absorb the Ved-ler Ved-ler court tenement property of Market Square church. (Jail tells Boyd that Ihe cathedral Market Square church proposes to build will he out of profits ivruiiK from siualii At a ineetini; of the seven financial finan-cial magnates of the country, Allison organizes or-ganizes tlic International Transportation company. Rev. Smith Boyd undertakes Gail's spiritual Instruction and Gail unconsciously un-consciously kIvcs Allif.on a hint that solves the Vethlcr court pioblem for him. On an Inspection trip In Allison's new subway sub-way the tunnel cavs in and Imprisons the party, who are rescued by the exertions exer-tions of Allison and iloyd. The newspaper accounts of the subwav accident place Gall In the spotlight and drive her to her home in the West. Her friends send Dick Kodle.v to lure Gali and Ally back to Now York, and he succeeds. CHAPTER XV Continued. The wide-set sanitary policeman paused in his survey long enough to wag a thick forefinger at the outraged householder. "Don't start anything," he advised. There's some tough mugs in this block, but you go down to the places I've bean, and you'll find that they're all clean,." With f.hese few simple remarks, he turned his back Indifferently to Mr. Rogers, and, catching hold of the carpet car-pet in the corner with his fingers, he lifted it up by the roots. "There's no usts buckin' the government," govern-ment," Mr. Rogvifs decided, after a critical study ot! the sanitary policeman's police-man's back, which was extremely impressive. im-pressive. "It's a government of the rich for the rich. Has a poor man got any show? I'm a capable stationary station-ary engineer. All I ask is a chance to work at my trade." This by an afterthought. "If you'll give me two dollars to tide me over " Rev. Smith Boyd stepped out of the way of the sanitary policeman, and then stepped out of the door. "And you call yourself a minister of the Gospel!" Mr. Rogers yelled after him. That was a sarnple of the morning's work, and Rev. Smith Boyd felt more and more, as he neared luncheon time, that he merited some consideration. If only for the weight or the cross he bore. There were worse incidents than the abuse of men like 'Rogers; there were the hideous sick to see, and the genuinely distressed to comfort, com-fort, and depthless miseiy to relieve; and any day in Vedder court was a terrific drain, both upon his sympathies sympa-thies and his personal pocket. He felt that this was an exceptionally exception-ally long day. Home in a hurry at twelve-thirty. A 1 scrub, a complete change of everything, every-thing, and a general feeling that he should have been sterilized and baked as well. Luncheon with the mother who saw what a long day this was, then a far different type of calls; in a sedate black car this time, up along the avenue, and in and out of the clean side streets, where there was little danger of having a tire punctured punc-tured by a wanton knife, as so often happened in Vedder court. Away to Vedder court again, dis missing his car at the door of Temple mission, and walking inside, out of range of the leers of those senile old buildings, but not out of the range of the peculiar spirit of Vedder court, which manifested itself most clearly to the olfactory sense. The organ was playing when he entered, en-tered, and the benches were half filled by battered old human remnants, who pretended conversion in order to pick up the crumbs which fell from the table of Market Square church. Chiding Chid-ing himself for weariness of the spirit, and comforting himself with the thought that one greater than he had faltered on the way to Golgotha, he sat on the little platform, with a hymn book In his hand, and, when the prelude prel-ude was finished, he devoted his wonderful won-derful voice to the blasphemy. The organist, a volunteer, a little old man who kept a shoemaker's shop around the corner, and who played sincerely in the name of helpfulness was pure of heart. , The men with the rough-hewn coun tenance, unfortunately not here today, was also sincere in an entirely un-gpiritual un-gpiritual way; but. with these excep tions, and himself, of course, the rector rec-tor knew positively that there was not another uncalloused creature in the room, not one who could be reached by argument, sympathy or fear! They were past redemption, every last man and woman; and. at the conclusion of the hymn, he rose to cast his pearls before swine, without heart and without with-out interest; for no man is interested In anything whicli cannot possibly be accomplished. With a feeling of mockery, yet up held by the thought that he was holding hold-ing out the way and the light, not only seven timeB but seventy times eeven times, to whatever shred or crumb ofdivlnity might lie unsuspect ed In these sterile breasts, he strove iic;utly to arouse enthusiasm in him self so that he might stir these dead ghosts, even in some minute and remote re-mote degree. Suddenly a harsh and raucous voice interrupted him. It was the voice of Mr. Rogers, and that gentleman, who had apparently secured somewhere the two dollars to tide him over, was now embarked on the tide. He had taken just enough drinks to make him ugly, if that process were possible, and he had developed a particularly strong resentment of the latest injustice injus-tice which had been perpetrated on him. That injustice consisted of Rev. Smith Boyd's refusal to lend him money till a week from next Saturday Satur-day night; and he had come to expose the rector's shallow hypocrisy. This he proceeded vo do, in language quite unsuited to the chapel of Temple mission mis-sion and to the ears of the ladies then present, most of whom grinned. The proceedings which followed were but brief. Rev. Smith Boyd requested re-quested the intruder to stop. The Intruder In-truder had rights, and he stood on them! Rev. Smith Boyd ordered him to stop; but the intruder had a free and independent -spirit, which forbade him to accept orders from any man! Rev. Smith Boyd, in the interests of discipline, without which the dignity and effectiveness of the cause could not be upheld, and pleased that this was so, ordered him out of the room. Mr. Rogers, with a flood of abuse which displayed some versatility, invited in-vited Rev. Smith Boyd to put him out; and Rev. Smith Boyd did so. It was not much of a struggle, though Mr. Rogers tore two benches loose on his way, and, at the narrow door through which it is difficult to thrust even a weak man, because there are so many arms and legs attached to the human torso, he was compelled to practically pitch him, headlong, across the sidewalk side-walk and over the curb and into the gutter! The victim of injustice arorte slowly, and turned to come back, but he paused to take a good look at the stalwart young perpetrator, and remembered re-membered that he was thirsty. Rev. Smith Boyd found himself standing in the middle of the sidewalk, with fists clenched and his blood surging. surg-ing. The atmosphere before his eyes seemed to be warm, as if it w;ere red dened slightly. He was tingling from head to fcot with a passion which he bad repressed and throttled and smothered since the days of his boyhood! boy-hood! He had striven, with a strength wfeicb was the secret of his compelling voice, to drive out of him all earthly dross, to found himself on the great example which was without the cravings of the body; he had sought to make himself spiritual; but, all at once, this conflict had roused in him a raging something, which swept up front the very soles of his feet to his twirling brain, and called him man! For a quivering moment he-stood there, a!ive with all the virility which was the richer because of his long re pression. Ho knew many things now. many things which ripened him in an instant, and gave him the heart to touch and the mind to understand and the soul to flame. He knew himself, he knew life, he knew, yes, and that was the wonderful miracle of the flood which poured Sn on him, he knew love! He reached suddenly for his watch. Six-ten. H could make it! Still impelled im-pelled by Itla new creature which had sprung up him, he started; but at the curb !i Stopped. He had been in such a ivhlH of emotion that he had not realised the absence of his hat. He strode ia!-o the mission door, and the rays of Uie declining sun, struggling strug-gling dircly through the dingy glass, fell on the scattered little assem' blage as If It h.ad been sent to touch them in merfy and compassion on the weak and the poor and the pite-ously pite-ously crippled Of soul; and a great wave of shamf -Jame to him; shame and thankfulness, too! He walked slowly up to the platform, plat-form, and, turning to that reddened sunlight which bathed his upturned face as if with a benediction, he said, iu a voice which, In its new sweetness of vibration, stirred even the murky depths of these, the numb: "Let us pray." CHAPTER XVI. The Creed of Gail. Who was that tall, severely correct gentleman waiting at the station, with a bunch of violets in his hand and the light in his countenance which was never on sea or land? It was Gerald Fosland, and he astonished ail beholders be-holders by his extraordinary conduct. As the beautiful Arly stepped through the gates, he advanced with an entirely en-tirely unrepressed smile, springing from tie balls of his feet with a buoyancy buoy-ancy too active to be quite in gooii form. Ilo took Arly's nand In his, but he did not bend over it with his customary cus-tomary courteous gallantry. Instead, he drew her slightly towards him. with a firm and deliberate movement, and, bending his head sidewise under the brim of her hat, kissed her; kissed her on the lips! Immediately thereafter he gave a dignified welcome to Gall, and with that never dies nor wavers nor falters, so long as the human race shall endure. en-dure. He bent still closer to her, so that he all but enfolded her. His warm breath was upon her cheek. The sympathy sym-pathy which was between them bridged the narrow chasm of air, and enveloped them in an ethereal flame which coursed them from head to foot, and had already nigh welded them into one. "I need you, Gall!" he told her. "1 need you to be my wife, my' sweetheart, sweet-heart, my companion. I need you to go with me through life, to walk hand in hand with me about the greatest work in the world, the redemption of the fallen and helpless, into whose lives we may shed some of the beauty which blossoms in our own." There was a low cry from Gail, a cry which was half a sob, which came with a sharp intake of the breath, and carried with it pain and sorrow and protest. She had been so happy, in what she fancied to be the near fulfillment ful-fillment of the promptings which had grown so strong within her. No surge of emotion like this had ever swept over her; no such wave of yearning had ever carried her impetuously up and out of herself as this had done. It had been the ecstatic answer to all her dreams, the ripe and rich and per feet completion of every longing within with-in her; yet, in the very midst of it had come a word which broke the magic thrall; a thought which had torn the fairy web like a rude storm from out the icy north; a devouring genie which, dark and frightening, advanced ad-vanced to destroy all the happiness which might follow this first inrushiug commingling of these two perfectly correlated elements! "1 can't!" she breathed, but she did not w ithdraw her hand from his clasp. She could not! It was as If those two palms had welded together, and had become parts of one and the same organism. or-ganism. There was an instant of silence. In which she slowly gathered her swirl- For a Quivering Moment He Stood There. the second time that evening, she hurried hur-ried away, with the license of a busy hostess, and cooled her face at an open window in the side vestibule. There was a new note in Rev. Smith Boyd's voice; not a greater depth nor mellowness nor sweetness, but a something else. What was it? It was a call, that was it; a call across the gulf of futurity. They came after her. Ted and Lu-cile Lu-cile had arrived. She was in a vortex. Dick Rodley hemmed her in a corner, and proposed to her again, just for practice, within eyeshot of a dozen people, and he did it so that onlookers might think that he was complimenting compliment-ing her on her clever coiffure or discussing dis-cussing a new operetta; but ho made her blush, which was the intention in the depths of his black eyes. It seemed that she was in a perpetual blush tonight, to-night, and something within her seemed to be surging and halting and wavering and quivering! Her Aunt Helen Davies, rather early in the evening, eve-ning, began to act stiff and formal. "Go home," she murmured to Lucile. "All this excitement is bad for Gail's beauty." After that the exodus became gen eral, until only Allison and Rev. Smith ! Boyd remained. The latter young gen-, gen-, tleman had taken his flutteringly hap-i hap-i py mother home early in the evening. and he had resorted to dullness with ! such of the thinning guests as had seemed disposed to linger. ! Aunt Helen thought she had better go upstairs after that, and she glanced into the music room as she passed, and knitted her brows at the tableau. Rev. Smith Boyd, who seemed unusually unusu-ally fine looking tonight, stood leaning against the piano, watching Gail with an almost incendiary gaze. That young lady, steadily resisting an Im-j Im-j pulse to feci her cheek with the back of her hand, sat on the end of the piano bet)':h farthest removed fron |