utomobile, at once," he said, when the servant came.

"I beg pardon; sir, but I think Gratton has gone to bed. He had no
orders."

"Then wake him," said Eldon Parr, "instantly. And send for my
secretary."

With a glance which he perceived Alison comprehended, Hodder made his way
out of the room. He had from Eldon Parr, as he passed him, neither
question, acknowledgment, nor recognition. Whatever the banker might
have felt, or whether his body had now become a mere machine mechanically
carrying on a life-long habit of action, the impression was one of the
tremendousness of the man's consistency. A great effort was demanded to
summon up the now almost unimaginable experience of his confidence; of
the evening when, almost on that very spot, he had revealed to Hodder the
one weakness of his life. And yet the effort was not to be, presently,
without startling results. In the darkness of the street the picture
suddenly grew distinct on the screen of the rector's mind, the face of
the banker subtly drawn with pain as he had looked down on it in
compassion; the voice with its undercurrent of agony:

"He never knew how much I cared--that what I was doing was all for him,
building for him, that he might carry on my work."

V

So swift was the trolley that ten minutes had elapsed, after Hodder's
arrival, before the purr of an engine and the shriek of a brake broke the
stillness of upper Dalton Street and announced the stopping of a heavy
motor before the door. The rector had found Mr. Bentley in the library,
alone, seated with bent head in front of the fire, and had simply
announced the intention of Eldon Parr to come. From the chair Hodder had
unobtrusively chosen, near the window, his eyes rested on the noble
profile of his friend. What his thoughts were, Hodder could not surmise;
for he seemed again, marvellously, to have regained the outward peace
which was the symbol of banishment from the inner man of all thought of
self.

"I have prepared her for Mr. Parr's coming," he said to Hodder at length.

And yet he had left her there! Hodder recalled the words Mr. Bentley had
spoken, "It is her place." Her place, the fallen woman's, the place she
had earned by a great love and a great renunciation, of which no earthly
power might henceforth deprive her . . . .

Then came the motor, the ring at the door, the entrance of Eldon Parr
into the library. He paused, a perceptible moment, on the threshold as
his look fell upon