it'll do you that much good you'll be surprised. Now, who'll
be the next to say a word for Jesus?" She was nodding encouragement at
the negro cook as if she knew him for a wavering soul, and he, sunk in
his gleaming white collar, was aware, in silent, smiling misery, that
the expectations of the meeting were toward him. Laura had again hidden
her eyes in her hand. The negro fingered his watch-chain foolishly, and
the prettiest of the East Indian half-castes tried hard to disguise her
perception that an African, in his best clothes, under conviction of
sin, was the funniest thing in the world. The silence seemed to focus
itself upon the cook, who fumbled at his coat collar and cleared his
voice. It was a shock to all concerned when Stephen Arnold, picking up
his hat, got upon his feet instead.

"I also," he said, "would offer my humble testimony to the grace of
God--with all my heart."

It was as if he had repeated part of the creed in the performance of his
office. Then he turned and bent gravely to Lindsay. "Shall we go now?"
he whispered, and the two made their way to the door, leaving a silence
behind them which Lindsay imagined, on the part of Ensign Sand at least,
to be somewhat resentful. As they passed out, a voice recovered itself
and cried, "Hallelujah!" It was Laura's. And all the way to the
club--Arnold was dining with him there--Lindsay listened to his friend's
analysis of religious appeal to the emotions, but chiefly heard that
clear music above a sordid din, "Hallelujah!" "Hallelujah!"

CHAPTER IV.

When Alicia Livingstone, almost believing she liked it, drove to Number
Three, Lal Behari's Lane and left cards upon Miss Hilda Howe, she was
only partially rewarded. Through the plaster gate-posts, badly in want
of repair and bearing, sunk in one of them, a marble slab announcing
"Residence with Board," she perceived the squalid attempt the place made
at respectability, the servants in dirty livery salaaming curiously, the
over-fed squirrel in a cage in the door, the pair of damaged wicker
chairs in the porch suggesting the easiest intercourse after dinner, the
general discoloration. She observed with irritation that it was a
down-at-heels shrine for such a divinity, in spite of its six dusty
crotons in crumbling plaster urns, but the irritation was rather at her
own repulsion to the place than at any inconsistency it presented. What
she demanded and expected of herself was that Number Three, Lal Be