plied. "And you? If I remember rightly--"

"Yes," she interrupted, "I revolted, too. But Mr. Hodder puts it so--it
makes one wonder."

"He has not only made me wonder," declared Bedloe Hubbell, emphatically,
"I never knew what religion was until I heard this man last Sunday."

"Last Sunday!"

"Until then, I hadn't been inside of a church for fifteen years,--except
to get married. My wife takes the children, occasionally, to a
Presbyterian church near us."

"And why, did you go then?" she asked.

"I am a little ashamed of my motive," he confessed. "There were
rumours--I don't pretend to know how they got about--" he hesitated,
once more aware of delicate ground. "Wallis Plimpton said something to
a man who told me. I believe I went out of sheer curiosity to hear
what Hodder would have to say. And then, I had been reading, wondering
whether there were anything in Christianity, after all."

"Yes?" she said, careless now as to what cause he might attribute her
eagerness. "And he gave you something?"

It was then she grasped the truth that this sudden renewed intimacy was
the result of the impression Hodder had left upon the minds of both.

"He gave me everything," Bedloe Hubbell replied. "I am willing to
acknowledge it freely. In his explanation of the parable of the Prodigal
Son, he gave me the clew to our modern times. What was for me an
inextricable puzzle has become clear as day. He has made me understand,
at last, the force which stirred me, which goaded me until I was fairly
compelled to embark in the movement which the majority of our citizens
still continue to regard as quixotic. I did not identify that force with
religion, then, and when I looked back on the first crazy campaign we
embarked upon, with the whole city laughing at me and at the obscure
and impractical personnel we had, there were moments when it seemed
incomprehensible folly. I had nothing to gain, and everything to lose
by such a venture. I was lazy and easy-going, as you know. I belonged
to the privileged class, I had sufficient money to live in comparative
luxury all my days, I had no grudge against these men whom I had known
all my life."

"But it must have had some beginning," said Alison.

"I was urged to run for the city council, by these very men." Bedloe
Hubbell smiled at the recollection. "They accuse me now of having
indulged once in the same practice, for which I am condemning them.
Our company did accept rebates, and we sough