n the manner of one who sets out to
tell a story he is secretly fond of.

"Do you remember standing on the steps of a church the Friday evening
before Christmas--a little after dark?"

Gabriella's eyes began to express remembrance. "A wagon-load of cedar
had just been thrown out on the sidewalk, the sexton was carrying it
into the church, some children were helping, you were making a wreath:
do you remember?"

She knew every word of this.

"A young man--a Bible student--passed, or tried to pass. You smiled at
his difficulty. Not unkindly," he added, smiling not unkindly himself.

"And that was you? This explains why I have always believed I had seen
you before. But it was only for a moment, your face was in the dark;
how should I remember?"

After she said this, she looked grave: his face that night had been far
from a happy one.

"That day," continued David, quickly grave also, "that day I saw my
professors and pastor for the last time; it ended me as a Bible
student. I had left the University and the scene of my trial only a
little while before."

He rose as he concluded and took a turn across the room. Then he faced
her, smiling a little sadly.

"Once I might have thought all that Providential. I mean, seeing the
faces of my professors--my judges--last, as the end of my old life;
then seeing your face next--the beginning of the new."

He had long used frankness like this, making no secret of himself, of
her influence over him. It was embarrassing; it declared so much,
assumed so much, that had never been declared or assumed in any other
way. But her stripped and beaten young Samaritan was no labyrinthine
courtier, bescented and bedraped and bedyed with worldliness and
conventions: he came ever in her presence naked of soul. It was this
that empowered her to take the measure of his feeling for her: it had
its effect.

David returned to his chair and looked across with a mixture of
hesitancy and determination.

"I have never spoken to you about my expulsion--my unbelief."

After a painful pause she answered.

"You must be aware that I have noticed your silence. Perhaps you do not
realize how much I have regretted it."

"You know why I have not?"

She did not answer.

"I have been afraid. It's the only thing in the world I've ever been
afraid of."

"Why should you have been?"

"I dreaded to know how you might feel. It has caused a difficulty with
every one so far. It separated me from my frien