ure like Channing, flabby, wordy, feebly vicious! Somewhere at home
she was waiting for him; lonely, perhaps, wondering why her husband did
not come to her, but safe and unashamed. Possibly her mother and Jemima
had already found her.

The thought reminded him of certain letters in his pocket, given him
that morning at the American Express, and unopened in the excitement of
at last running Channing to cover. He drew them out, hoping to find
among them one from Storm.

The first was from his bishop, pooh-poohing his offer to resign from the
ministry, and suggesting a long vacation. It ended with a sentence that
touched Philip deeply: "Assure your brave little wife of the lasting
friendship of an old man who collects rare virtues (other people's
virtues) as certain connoisseurs collect etchings, and who considers
moral courage the rarest of the lot."

Philip turned to his other letter. At sight of the hand-writing he
started, and looked quickly at the postmark. It was that of a little
town in the Kentucky mountains.

Lately he had thought very often of his father, as he always thought in
all the critical moments of his life. At such times the man whose face
he had forgotten seemed very near to him. The feeling of nearness
deepened as he opened his letter, the first from Jacques Benoix since he
had left prison. It was almost as if his father stood there beside him,
with a hand on his shoulder.

When he had finished reading, he turned blindly into a church he was
passing (it happened to be the cathedral of Notre Dame) and knelt with
hidden face before the statue of that coquettish, charming, typically
Parisienne madonna, who is not unaccustomed to the sight of men praying
with tears.

CHAPTER XLVII

A fleeting, illusory hint of spring appeared for the moment in that
street known among all the world's great avenues--the Champs Elysees,
the Nevsky Prospect, the Corso, Unter den Linden--as "The Avenue." Its
pavements glistened with a slippery coating of mud that had yesterday
been snow, its windows blossomed with hothouse daffodils and narcissi,
also with flowery hats and airy garments that made the passer-by shiver
by their contrast with the cutting March wind. In and out, among
automobiles and pedestrians, darted that fearless optimist, the
metropolitan sparrow, busy already with straws and twigs for his spring
building.

A girl, moving alone and rather wearily among the chattering throng,
caught this hint