Thanksgiving night—we had won the game—all of us, but the Y.M.C.A. men, went into town for a dinner and celebration. I happened to be the only man from my fraternity on the football team, and, when the dinner broke up, I found myself alone. My head was swimming a bit and I remember walking down the main street, trying to recall whether or not I had decided to launch out on this woman adventure. I was sure I had not expected to be left to my own resources. I was making my way towards the station to catch a train back to college, when I fell in with some of the fellows. They annexed me at once. Down the street we went, roaring out the Battle Cry of Freedom. They had an objective but every barroom we passed distracted their attention. It was the first time I had ever approached the frontier of sobriety—that night I went far over the line. Out of the muddle of it all, I remember being persuaded to climb some dark stairs and being suddenly sobered by the sight of a roomful of women. I may have been so befuddled that I am doing them an injustice, but no women ever seemed to me so nauseatingly ugly. Despite the protest of my friends, I bolted. It is not a pleasant experience to relate, but it kept me from what might easily have been worse. I had missed the last train. Not wanting to spend the night in a hotel, nor to meet my fellows on the morning train, I walked the ten miles out to college. Somehow the sight of those abhorrent women had driven all the fumes of alcohol from my brain. In the cold, crisp night, under the low hanging lights of heaven, I felt myself more clear minded than usual. As sharply as the stars shone overhead, I realized that I had no business with such debauch. It was not that I took any resolution, only I understood beyond question that such things had no attraction to me. It is something I do not understand. The Father had taught me that many things were sinful. But I do not think there was anything in my training to lead me to feel that drunkenness and debauch were any worse than card-playing. Yet I learned to play poker with a light heart. It was the same with theatre going and dancing. He had very much oftener warned me against these things than against drunkenness. The best explanation I can find, although it does not entirely satisfy me, is that vulgar debauch shocked some æsthetic, rather than moral instinct. It was not the thought of sin which had driven me to run away from those women, but their appalling ugliness. Towards the end of the spring term, the long-delayed quarrel with the Father came to a head. I forget the exact cause of the smash-up, perhaps it was smoking. I am sure it commenced over some such lesser thing. But once the breach was open there was no chance of patching it up. In the half dozen letters which passed between us, I professed my heresies with voluminous underlinings. I had only one idea, to finish forever with pretense and hypocrisy.