“Pray do not speak of it!” said Denham, flushing a little as he took her hand.  “There was no occasion whatever for gratitude, and therefore no possible lack of it.  I trust you are quite well now.”

“There was occasion for gratitude,” persisted Gerald, “or at least for an acknowledgment of your kindness, and it is because I am ashamed of my remissness that I take this first opportunity to thank you.”

“You embarrass me,” said Denham, laughingly.  “I am not at all accustomed to having public restitution made me in this manner, and especially for purely imaginary slights.  But may I not be permitted now—­as a sort of reward if you will—­to inquire if you have quite recovered?”

“At least I have sufficiently recovered to retract my disbelief in kitchen soap, and—­and in your skill,” she added, with a little visible effort.

“You honor us above our deserts,—­the soap and me,” answered Denham, playfully.  “I don’t know how deleteriously it may affect the soap, but as for me I feel myself growing alarmingly conceited.  So good-night.”

“What a very elaborate apology,” said De Forest, as Denham went out.  “If the offence were at all proportionate, I tremble to think of the enormity of your crime; or is it because he is a Reverend, that you demean yourself so humbly before him?”

Halloway was still hunting for his hat in the hall, and could scarcely help overhearing De Forest’s remark and Gerald’s answer.

“I demean myself before nobody in seeking to make amends for a previous neglect.  The humiliation is in the misconduct, not in the confession of it; and whether I owed the apology to Mr. Halloway or to a beggar in the street, I should have made it quite the same, not at all for sake of his pardon, but simply for sake of clearing my own conscience.”

“Not at all for sake of my pardon,” said Denham, as he strode on toward the church, with the uncomfortable sensation of having been an involuntary eavesdropper.  “It is fortunate that my conceit was only veneered on.”

The following Sunday Gerald was in church both morning and evening, sitting in Phebe’s accustomed place.  She was one of those noticeable presences impossible to overlook, and as Denham mounted into the pulpit he felt as if he were preaching solely to her, or rather as if hers were the only criticism he feared in all the friendly congregation.  He was annoyed that he should feel so, and quite conscious at the same time that he was far from doing his best, and once or twice he caught a flash in the serious eyes fastened on his face, that seemed to say she knew this last fact too, and was impatient with him for it.  What excuse had any one, in Gerald’s eyes, for not doing his best always?  De Forest was with her in the evening, and as Halloway came out of the vestry after service, he found himself directly behind them.

“He’s not a mighty orator,” De Forest was saying with his cynical drawl.  “I doubt if he is destined to be one of the pillars or even one of the cushions of the church.”