So the divine Friend waits and watches, while we, in ignorance and unbelief, pay no heed. Stranger far, He waits and watches when we know, but yet, unrelenting, ignore His presence. With heavy steps, Dennis wearily plodded homeward. He was oppressed by that deep despondency which follows great fatigue and excitement. In the southwest he saw a brilliant light. He heard the alarm-bells, and knew there was a fire, but to have aroused him that night it must have come scorchingly close. He reached his dark little room, threw himself dressed on the couch, and slept till nearly noon of the next day. When he awoke, and realized how the first hours of the Sabbath had passed, he started up much vexed with himself, and after a brief retrospect said: "Such excitements as those of yesterday are little better than a debauch, and I must shun them hereafter. God has blessed and succeeded me, and it is but a poor return I am making. However my unfortunate attachment may end, nothing is gained by moping around in the hours of night. Henceforth let there be an end of such folly." He made a careful toilet and sat down to his Sabbath-school lesson. To his delight he again met Mrs. Leonard, who came to visit her old mission class. She smiled most approvingly, and quoted, "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much." He went home with her, and in the evening they all went to church together. He cried unto the Lord for strength and help, and almost lost consciousness of the service in his earnest prayer for true manhood and courage to go forward to what he feared would be a sad and lonely life. And the answer came; for a sense of power and readiness to do God's will, and withal a strange hopefulness, inspired him. Trusting in the Divine strength, he felt that he could meet his future now, whatever it might be. Again the alarm-bells were ringing, and there was a light on the southwest. "There seems to be a fire over there in the direction of my poor German friend's house. You remember Mrs. Bruder. I will go and call on them, I think. At any rate I should call, for it is owing to her husband that I won the prize;" and they parted at the church-door. Christine had left the picture-gallery soon after Dennis's abrupt departure. Her gay friends had tried in vain to rally her, and rather wondered at her manner, but said, "She is so full of moods of late, you can never know what to expect." Her father, with a few indifferent words, left her for his place of business. His hope still was to prevent her meeting Dennis, and to keep up the estrangement that existed.