autumn afternoon, heavy with smoke, had settled down into darkness. The
weather was damp and cold, and he sat musing on the ordeal now abruptly
confronting him before his study fire when he heard a step behind him.
He turned to recognize, by the glow of the embers, the heavy figure of
Nelson Langmaid.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Hodder," he said. "The janitor said you
were in, and your door is open."

"Not at all," replied the rector, rising. As he stood for a moment
facing the lawyer, the thought of their friendship, and how it had begun
in the little rectory overlooking the lake at Bremerton, was uppermost
in his mind,--yes, and the memory of many friendly, literary discussions
in the same room where they now stood, of pleasant dinners at Langmaid's
house in the West End, when the two of them had often sat talking until
late into the nights.

"I must seem very inhospitable," said Hodder. "I'll light the lamp--it's
pleasanter than the electric light."

The added illumination at first revealed the lawyer in his familiar
aspect, the broad shoulders, the big, reddish beard, the dome-like
head,--the generous person that seemed to radiate scholarly benignity,
peace, and good-will. But almost instantly the rector became aware of a
new and troubled, puzzled glance from behind the round spectacles...

"I thought I'd drop in a moment on my way up town--" he began. And the
note of uncertainty in his voice, too, was new. Hodder drew towards
the fire the big chair in which it had been Langmaid's wont to sit,
and perhaps it was the sight of this operation that loosed the lawyer's
tongue.

"Confound it, Hodder!" he exclaimed, "I like you--I always have
liked you. And you've got a hundred times the ability of the average
clergyman. Why in the world did you have to go and make all this
trouble?"

By so characteristic a remark Hodder was both amused and moved. It
revealed so perfectly the point of view and predicament of the
lawyer, and it was also an expression of an affection which the rector
cordially, returned.... Before answering, he placed his visitor in
the chair, and the deliberation of the act was a revelation of the
unconscious poise of the clergyman. The spectacle of this self-command
on the brink of such a crucial event as the vestry meeting had taken
Langmaid aback more than he cared to show. He had lost the old sense
of comradeship, of easy equality; and he had the odd feeling of dealing
with a new man, at o