ssessing even half a portion of real integrity is so
rarely found engaged in the liquor business that this man's character
was often spoken of. Whether he was honest may be doubted, but certain
it was, he was not bidding for the church vote by making promises and
prayers. Yet the cloak of respectability that he wore made him ten times
more dangerous than one of baser worth would have been; but his cloak,
it is well to remember, differed only in color from the cloak worn by
unnumbered men, to-day posing before a long-suffering people as
Christian leaders.

In spite of the indifference of Mr. Allison and the vexation of Jean,
each felt the subtle power of attraction in the other that neither could
explain.

One night when sitting closer than usual to her side, he calmly
possessed himself of one of her hands.

"You are quite an enigma to me," he said. "How can you be a bit
comfortable in such close proximity to a representative of the ungodly
traffic?"

"I cannot," she answered, pulling at her hand. "I will go away."

"Will you?" and he tightened the pressure of his fingers.

Jean dropped her head on her free hand and was very still. Mr. Allison,
watching her, presently saw a tear-drop on her cheek.

He put his arm around her, and would have drawn her to him, but with a
firm, gentle touch, the meaning of which was unmistakable, she pushed
his arm aside, and, rising, stood before him.

The faint trace of tears still marked her eyes, and her voice was a
trifle unsteady.

"Mr. Allison, we cannot be even friends! We just cannot! You are a 'man
atom of the great iniquity.'"

She crossed the room, and, raising a shade, stood looking absently into
the moonlight. Gilbert Allison leaned forward and seemed trying to
obtain the solution of some mystery from the outlines of her figure.

She still stood there when Judge Thorn entered from an adjoining room,
and while he conversed with her liquor-dealer lover, Jean left the room
to return no more that night.

But Mr. Allison was not thus to be disposed of.

A few evenings passed, and he was again announced a visitor at the Thorn
home, and Jean appeared really very glad to see him, considering that
they were never to be friends. After a few moments of casual
conversation he took from his pocket an evening paper, folded so that
she could not miss the reading, and held it before her eyes.

From the item thus displayed she learned that Gilbert Allison, late of
the firm of