“A post-graduate,” she thought, “back on a visit. Or, more likely, a minister without a pulpit, coming to Cesarea after a parish, or places to supply. Probably he has seven children and a mother-in-law to support. If he’s ‘sound’ he’ll come to Father--no--yes. Why, _yes_!” She drew suddenly back from the window. It was Emanuel Bayard. He waded through the slush as quickly as so tired a man could. He had walked from the station, saving his coach fare, and had made but feint of being a guest at the hotel, where he had not dined. He was not quite prepared to let Helen know that he had lunched on cold johnny-cake and dried beef, put up by Mrs. Granite in a red cotton doily, and tenderly pinned over by Jane with a safety-pin. He lifted his eyes to the gloomy landscape for illumination, which it denied him. He knew no more than the snow professor what he should do, what he should say, no, nor why he had lapsed into this great weakness, and come to Cesarea at all. He felt as if he might make, indeed, a mortal mistake, one way or the other. He pleaded to himself that he must see her face once more, or perish. Nature was mightier than he, and drove him on, as it drives the strongest of us in those reactions from our strenuous vow and sternest purpose, for which we have lacked the simple foresight to provide in our plan of life. There was a new snow professor, by the way, comfortably melting before the pump beside the Academy commons. He had been considered sounder than any of his predecessors, and had been supplied with a copy of St. Augustine’s Confessions, which he perused with a corncob pipe between his lips of ice. A Westminster catechism ornamented his vest pocket. He was said to have slumped beautifully, when the thaw came. Bayard shot a tolerant smile at the snow professor’s remains, as he came up the steps. Helen herself answered his ring. Both of them found this so natural that neither commented upon this little act of friendliness. The Professor was at his lecture; and Mrs. Carruth was making her final appearance at certain local Cesarea charities; principally, to-day, at the Association for Assisting Indigent Married Students with blankets and baby-clothes. Helen explained these facts with her usual irreverence, as she ushered her visitor into the parlor. “If I had a fortune,” she observed, “I would found a society in Cesarea for making it a Penal Offence for a Married Man to Study for the Ministry without a Visible Income. The title is a little long, don’t you think? How could we shorten it? It’s worse than the Cruelty to Animals thing. Mr. Bayard?--why, Mr. Bayard!” When she saw the expression of his face, her own changed with remorseful swiftness. “You are perfectly right,” he said with sudden, smiting incisiveness. “You are more than right. It is the greatest act of folly of my life that I am here.” He stood still, and looked at her. The despair she saw in his eyes seemed to her a measureless, bottomless thing.