out on some errands. I was out for luncheon, and so
missed her. When she came down to dinner, she hadn't any appetite and
was very feverish. What's more, if it had been anybody but Olive, I'd
have vowed she'd cried her eyes out, all the afternoon."

"And this morning?" Reed's accent showed that he was profoundly
worried. Tears, indeed, were out of all harmony with his experience of
Olive Keltridge.

The doctor's reply came crisply.

"Apparently, she'd cried them in again." Then once more he bent above
the couch where Opdyke lay. "Hang on to the tail of every sort of hope,
Reed," he bade him cheerily. "It's not an especially amusing
occupation; but it is about the only thing for us to do at present.
I'll look in on you, in the morning, to make sure how you slept. By the
way," he tossed the last words back across the threshold; "as long as
you haven't much else upon your hands, I think I'll order Olive to come
down here, and let you cheer her up a little." And, before Reed could
answer, he was gone.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

If Reed Opdyke had gained any inkling of the wide swath of woe and
consequent spiritual doubtings that he was cutting among the closest of
his personal friends, he would have fallen to plucking out his hair in
mingled rage and shamed amusement. Mercifully, however, that
humiliating knowledge was denied him. As a rule, one keeps that sort of
questionings from their subject; as a rule, he is the last person in
the world to be aware of them.

Reed Opdyke, then, was thoroughly perplexed, next afternoon, when
Brenton walked in upon him. The change in the young rector, more than
usually obvious, that afternoon, took Opdyke by surprise. He had gained
no inkling that anything was going really wrong, in that direction. To
all outward seeming, Scott Brenton ought to have been riding on the
crest of the ecclesiastical wave. In worldly parlance, Saint Peter's
Parish was on the boom. The administration of it had completely
outgrown Brenton's time and strength, and a curate was in prospect,
with a deaconess or two lurking in the more remote perspective.

Brenton himself, meanwhile, had been too full of work for making many
calls. He had telephoned to Opdyke, nearly every day, had sent him
clever articles to read, and things of that sort; but he had not been
to see his old friend, since the last day of the year. Pastoral
conversation had never been especially popular between the two men; yet
each of them wa