“Dr. Gilbert.”

“Dr. Gilbert?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How does it happen that I never knew it?”

“I am sure I do not know.”  Dr. Van Anden passed his hand across his eyes, and spoke in sadness and weariness.  “I had no conception that you were not aware of it until this moment.  It explains in part what was strangely mysterious to me; but even in that case, it would have been, as you said, a blunder, not a criminal act However, we can not undo that past.  I desire, above all other things, to set myself right in your eyes as a Christian man.  I think I may have been a stumbling-block to you.  God only knows how bitter is the thought I have done wrong; I should have acknowledged it years ago.  I can only do it now.  Again I ask you.  Dr. Douglass, will you pardon those bitterly spoken words of mine?”

Dr. Douglass bowed stiffly, with an increase of hauteur visible in every line of his face.

“Give yourself no uneasiness on that score, Dr. Van Anden, nor on any other, I beg you, so far as I am concerned.  My opinion of Christianity is peculiar perhaps, but has not altered of late; nor is it likely to do so.  Of course, every gentleman is bound to accept the apology of another, however tardily it may be offered.  Shall I bid you good-evening, sir?”

And with a very low, very dignified bow, Dr. Douglass went back to the piazza and Sadie.  And groaning in spirit over the tardiness of his effort, Dr. Van Anden returned to his room, and prayed that he might renew his zeal and his longing for the conversion of that man’s soul.

“Have you been receiving a little fraternal advice?” queried Sadie, her mischievous eyes dancing with fun over the supposed discomfiture of one of the two gentlemen, she cared very little which.

“Not at all.  On the contrary, I have been giving a little of that mixture in a rather unpalatable form, I fear.  I haven’t a very high opinion of the world, Miss Sadie.”

“Including yourself, do you mean?” was Sadie’s demure reply.

Dr. Douglass looked the least bit annoyed; then he laughed, and answered with quiet grace: 

“Yes, including even such an important individual as myself.  However, I have one merit which I consider very rare—­sincerity.”

Sadie’s face assumed a half puzzled, half amused expression, as she tried by the moonlight to give a searching look at the handsome form leaning against the pillar opposite her.

“I wonder if you are as sincere as you pretend to be?” was her next complimentary sentence.  “And also I wonder if the rest of the world are as unlimited a set of humbugs as you suppose?  How do you fancy you happened to escape getting mixed up with the general humbugism of the world?  This Mr. Parker, now, talks as though he felt it and meant it.”

“He is a first-class fanatic of the most outrageous sort.  There ought to be a law forbidding such ranters to hold forth, on pain of imprisonment for life.”