s to turn away and leave it, unhealed and
aching." Then she threw off the little allegory, and once more spoke
with spirit. "Dolph, we're created in mental couples, I suspect. Much
as I care for Reed, it was you who had the insight to plan how he could
make his life over into something besides the bare existence we all
were dreading. In the same way, I may be the one to take in the tragedy
of Mr. Brenton's indeterminate existence, and make it just a little
lighter, if only by my understanding. Anyway, I mean to try."

She turned in across the lawn, leaving Dolph to stare after her
retreating figure with no small anxiety.

"Blast the understanding!" he said profanely. "And then, blast the
preacher!"

The poor preacher, however, for preacher still he was, in spite of the
reversal of his collar fastenings, was feeling himself already blasted.
He had been spending a long hour in the doctor's laboratory; and the
doctor, for the once, had turned his back upon his pans and trays of
cultures, and lavished his entire attention on his visitor.

"It's just here, Brenton," he said quietly, after an hour of argument;
"you can do one of two things: you can keep to your text and teach
those girls straight chemistry; or--"

Brenton faced him squarely, squarely capped the sentence with a single
word.

"Resign."

"Yes."

"You mean you think I am a failure in my teaching?"

"No. Your teaching is all right. You are a born chemist and a born
teacher. It's your infernal preaching I object to," the doctor told him
unexpectedly.

"My preaching?"

"Yes. You employ your pulpit methods in your classes. You take a
chemical text, and then turn and twist it into any sort of a
metaphysical conclusion that appeals to you at the minute. No; wait! I
am talking. Science is not equivocal, Brenton. It's as downright and
determinate as A+B. It's what we know; not what we think we ought to
think about the things we know. And it's science you are there to
teach, not glittering abstractions having to do with man's latter end.
The fact is, you've spent so long in trying to subject your theology to
scientific proof that, now you're surfeited with science, you are
trying to use it as a feeder to your theologic fires."

"Not consciously," Brenton objected, as a flush crept up across his
cheeks. "I have meant--"

The doctor interrupted, but not unkindly.

"Consciously or unconsciously, it's all one, Brenton, as concerns the
output. You must brid