to you."

For answer there was a sound of hurrying footsteps across the floor of
the room. The next moment the curtain was pulled aside. Kate stood at
the other side of the window in the dim lamplight. Her handsome eyes
were startled and full of inquiry, and her rounded bosom rose and fell
quickly. When she saw the pale face peering in at her a gentle smile
crept into her eyes.

"You scared the life out of me," she said calmly. Then, with a quick
look into his bloodshot eyes, she went on: "Why did you wait for
me--here?"

Charlie lowered his eyes. "I--guessed you'd be along some time this
evening. I wanted to speak to you--alone."

Kate studied him for a moment. His averted, almost shifty, eyes seemed
to hold her attention. She was thinking rapidly.

Presently his eyes came back to her face; a deep passion was shining
in them.

"Can I come around to the door?"

There was just the smallest hesitation before Kate replied.

"Yes, if you must see me here."

Charlie waited for no more. The door was on the other side of the
building, overlooking the village below. He hurried thither, and when
he thrust it open the place was in darkness.

Kate's voice greeted him promptly. "The draught has blown the lamp
out. Have you a match?"

Charlie closed the door behind him, and produced and struck a match.
The lamp flared up and Kate replaced the glass chimney. Then she moved
over to the wall and placed the lamp in its bracket.

It was a curious interior. In their unevenness the white kalsomined
walls displayed their primitive workmanship. The windows were small,
framed, and set deep in the ponderous walls. They looked almost like
the arrow slits in a mediaeval fortress. The long, pitched roof was
supported, and collared, by heavy, untrimmed logs, which, at some
time, had formed the floor-supports of a sort of loft. This had been
done away with since, for the purpose of giving air to the suppliants
at a prayer meeting below.

At the far end of the room were two reading desks and a sort of
communion table. While in one corner, behind one of the reading desks,
was a cheap-looking harmonium. Here and there, upon the rough walls,
were nailed cardboard streamers, conveying, amid a wealth of
illumination, sundry appropriate texts of a non-committal religious
flavor, and down the narrow body of the building were stretched rows
of hard-seated, hard-backed benches for the accommodation of the
congregation.

One swift glance