dercurrent of deep happiness, for he knew that in the moment of the
most intense loneliness, the most utter hopelessness that he had ever
known, God had sent His angel and delivered him.

And Mrs. Mackenzie talked on in her usual cheerful, lighthearted
way and never dreamed that she had been God's angel to any one that
afternoon. Reggie was too shy to tell her, and she had not the key to
the thoughts of the young organist who first woke the echoes of the
church for her, with the strains of,

But the Lord is mindful of His own,
He remembers His children.

That was for to-day and for to-morrow too, in Reggie's mind. As the
evening wore on, the dread of the to-morrow morning, when at nine
o'clock he must meet Mr. Gray, grew upon him. That his interference
had been resented, even while it was accepted, Reggie had seen quite
plainly, and to-morrow was coming nearer with each tick of the clock.

CHAPTER XIII.

BEARDING THE LION.

When Reggie entered the Bank just before nine o'clock on the following
morning, his heart was going pit-a-pat, for he knew his chief well
enough to be certain that it was impossible to count upon how he would
look at yesterday's happenings. He might never think of the occurrence
again, or he might refer to it with an easy laugh at Reggie's stricter
principles, or he might be riding the high horse and resent the
interference to an extent which Reggie knew would be long enduring, if
it ever ceased at all.

[Illustration: "'I wish, if you aren't engaged, you would come home to
supper with us.'"--_Page 118._]

So much depended on how Mrs. Gray had dealt with the matter, and on how
long her husband had remained with his convivial friends, and on these
two points Reggie had no knowledge. Yet much of the success which
attended his efforts for Mr. Gray this morning, had their beginning in
the fact that Mrs. Gray had received her husband late the night before,
with no word of reproach, but had treated him with unusual gentleness
and affection, and he had come down to his work this morning softened by
love, and not hardened by bitter words or arguments. Reggie chided
himself for thinking so much of the harm he might have done his own
future, but with another morning's post in, and no birthday letter from
Gertrude, he felt more sore and more uneasy. If his prospects at the
Bank became gloomy, what would be his chances of securing Gertrude?

But when he went into Mr. Gray's private