He clicked off his light and very carefully opened his door. Mary was
in the lower hall, the heavy gray cat hugged up in her arms. She wore
a lace boudoir cap, and a pale blue dressing-gown trailed after her.
Seen thus, she was exquisitely feminine. Faintly through his
consciousness flitted Porter Bigelow's name for her--Contrary Mary.
Why Contrary? Was there another side which he had not seen? He had
heard her flaming words to Barry, "If I were a man--I'd make the world
move----" and he had been for the moment repelled. He had no sympathy
with modern feminine rebellions. Women were women. Men were men. The
things which they had in common were love, and that which followed, the
home, the family. Beyond these things their lives were divided,
necessarily, properly.

He groped his way back through the darkness to the tower window, opened
it and leaned out. The rain beat upon his face, the wind blew his hair
back, and fluttered the ends of his loose tie. Below him lay the
storm-swept city, its lights faint and flickering. He remembered a
test which he had chosen on a night like this.

"O Lord, Thou art my God. I will exalt Thee, I will praise Thy name,
for Thou hast done wonderful things; Thou hast been a strength to the
poor, a strength to the needy in distress . . . a refuge from the
storm----"

How the words came back to him, out of that vivid past. But
to-night--why, there was no--God! Was he the fool who had once seen
God--in a storm?

He shut the window, and finding a heavy coat and an old cap put them