It was the most natural thing that presently he should be strolling past the Madden house, and letting a covert glance stray over its front and the grounds about it, as he loitered along.  Every day since his return from the woods he had given the fates this chance of bringing Celia to meet him, without avail.  He had hung about in the vicinity of the Catholic church on several evenings as well, but to no purpose.  The organ inside was dumb, and he could detect no signs of Celia’s presence on the curtains of the pastorate next door.  This day, too, there was no one visible at the home of the Maddens, and he walked on, a little sadly.  It was weary work waiting for the signal that never came.

But there were compensations.  His mind reverted doggedly to the flowers in his garden, and to Alice’s behavior toward him.  They insisted upon connecting themselves in his thoughts.  Why should Levi Gorringe, a money-lender, and therefore the last man in the world to incur reckless expenditure, go and buy perhaps a hundred dollars, worth of flowers for his wife’s garden?  It was time—­high time—­to face this question.  And his experiencing religion afterward, just when Alice did, and marching down to the rail to kneel beside her—­that was a thing to be thought of, too.

Meditation, it is true, hardly threw fresh light upon the matter.  It was incredible, of course, that there should be anything wrong.  To even shape a thought of Alice in connection with gallantry would be wholly impossible.  Nor could it be said that Gorringe, in his new capacity as a professing church-member, had disclosed any sign of ulterior motives, or of insincerity.  Yet there the facts were.  While Theron pondered them, their mystery, if they involved a mystery, baffled him altogether.  But when he had finished, he found himself all the same convinced that neither Alice nor Gorringe would be free to blame him for anything he might do.  He had grounds for complaint against them.  If he did not himself know just what these grounds were, it was certain enough that they knew.  Very well, then, let them take the responsibility for what happened.

It was indeed awkward that at the moment, as Theron chanced to emerge temporarily from his brown-study, his eyes fell full upon the spare, well-knit form of Levi Gorringe himself, standing only a few feet away, in the staircase entrance to his law office.  His lean face, browned by the summer’s exposure, had a more Arabian aspect than ever.  His hands were in his pockets, and he held an unlighted cigar between his teeth.  He looked the Rev. Mr. Ware over calmly, and nodded recognition.

Theron had halted instinctively.  On the instant he would have given a great deal not to have stopped at all.  It was stupid of him to have paused, but it would not do now to go on without words of some sort.  He moved over to the door-way, and made a half-hearted pretence of looking at the photographs in one of the show-cases at its side.  As Mr. Gorringe did not take his hands from his pockets, there was no occasion for any formal greeting.