gently and lead
her! It made him feel old and responsible to look at her--tender,
beautiful girl!--enveloped as she was in the garment of his ideal of
womanhood.

Yet there was something about it all that drove him from her. He must
think it out and come to some clear understanding with himself. As it
was, it seemed to him as if he were trying to take peace within himself
while before him lay a lot of his own broken vows. He had vowed to
himself to bring her to the Christ and he had not accomplished it.
Instead she had declared she hated him and the Presence both; yet here
he sat making love to her and ignoring it all! He felt a distinct
weakness in himself, but did not know how to remedy it.

When he finally got away from Gila and walked feverishly toward the
university, he felt as if his soul was crying out within him for a
solution of the perplexities in which he was involved. By his side
walked a Friend, but there seemed to be a veil between them. Ever
mingling with his thoughts came the sweet, tear-wet face of Gila, with
its Solveig-look, pleading up at him from the mist of the evening,
luring him as it were to forget the Christ. He passed his hand wearily
over his eyes, told himself that he had been through a good deal that
evening and his nerves were not as strong as they used to be since the
fire.

He was surprised to find that it was still early when he got back to his
room, barely half past nine. Yet it had seemed as if it must be near
midnight, so much had happened.

What he would have thought if he could have known that at that very
minute Tennelly was seated in the chair in the library that he had so
lately vacated, and Gila, posing bewitchingly in the firelight, merrily
talking him over, is hard to say.

Not that they were saying anything against him--of course not! Tennelly
would never have stood for that, and Gila knew better. But Gila had no
intention of giving Tennelly any idea how far matters had gone between
herself and Courtland. As for Tennelly, he would have been the most
amazed of the three if he could have known all. He had been Courtland's
intimate friend for so many years--years count like ages when one is in
college--that he thought he knew him perfectly. He would have sworn to
it that Courtland's friendship with Gila had not progressed further than
a mere first stage of friendship. He admitted that Gila had an influence
over his friend, but that it had really gone heart-deep seemed
im