"I didn't recognize you at first in that get-up," she observed, looking
at his blue serge suit. "So you've dropped the preacher business, have
you? You're wise, all right."

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

"Didn't I tell you when you came 'round that time that you weren't like
the rest of 'em? You're too human."

Once more the word, and on her lips, startled him.

"Some of the best men I have ever known, the broadest and most
understanding men, have been clergymen," he found himself protesting.

"Well, they haven't dropped in on me. The only one I ever saw that
measured up to something like that was you, and now you've chucked it."

Had he, as she expressed the matter, "chucked it"? Her remark brought
him reluctantly, fearfully, remorselessly--agitated and unprepared as
he was--face to face with his future.

"You were too good for the job," she declared. "What is there in it?
There ain't nobody converted these days that I can see, and what's the
use of gettin' up and preach into a lot of sapheads that don't know what
religion is? Sure they don't."

"Do you?" he asked.

"You've called my bluff." She laughed. "Say, do YOU?" If there was
anything in it you'd have kept on preachin' to that bunch and made some