he's gone up the mountain, and that he's
not gone there alone."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I think drunken Job's wife, and old McNider, and some more
of the Second Advent folks, will go with him, expecting to be caught
up."

"Impossible!" cried Trenholme, vehemently. Then more soberly, "Even if
they had such wild intentions, the weather would, of course, put a stop
to it."

Harkness did not look convinced. "Job's threatened to beat his wife to
death if she goes, and it's my belief she'll go."

He twirled his hat as he spoke. He was, in fact, trying to get the
responsibility of his suspicions lightened by sharing them with
Trenholme at this eleventh hour, but his hearer was not so quickly
roused.

"If you believe that," he said coolly, "you ought to give information to
the police."

"The police know all that I know. They've heard the people preaching and
singing in the streets. I can't make them believe the story if they
don't. They'd not go with me one step on a night like this--not one
step."

There was a short silence. Trenholme was weighing probabilities. On the
whole, he thought the police were in the right of it, and that this
young man was probably carried away by a certain liking for novel
excitement.

"In any case," he said aloud, "I don't see what I can do in the matter."

Harkness turned to leave as abruptly as he had come in. "If you don't, I
see what I can do. I'm going along there to see if I can find them."

"As you are in a way responsible for the old man, perhaps that is your
duty," replied Trenholme, secretly thinking that on such roads and under
such skies the volatile youth would not go very far.

A blast of wind entered the house door as Harkness went out of it,
scattering Trenholme's papers, causing his study lamp to flare up
suddenly, and almost extinguishing it.

Trenholme went on with his writing, and now a curious thing happened.
About nine o'clock he again heard steps upon his path, and the bell
rang. Thinking it a visitor, he stepped to the door himself, as he often
did. There was no one there but a small boy, bearing a large box on his
shoulders. He asked for Mrs. Martha. "Have you got a parcel for her?"
said Trenholme, thinking his housekeeper had probably retired, as she
did not come to the door. The boy signified that he had, and made his
way into the light of the study door. Trenholme saw now, by the label on
the box, that he had come from the largest millinery