"I know," she assented sorrowfully. "There's lots of them in the church. We have 'em, too, even in our little village. But still, after all, you can't help havin' confidence more in them that has 'named the name' than in them that has not." Reyburn looked at her curiously and felt a sudden infusion of respect for her. She was putting the test of her faith to him, and he knew by the little stifled sigh that he had been found wanting. "I s'pose lawyers don't have much time to think about being Christians," she apologized for him. He felt impelled to be frank with her: "I'm afraid I can't urge that excuse. Unfortunately I have a good deal of time on my hands now. I've just opened my office and I'm waiting for clients." "Where were you before that? You did not just get through studying?" He saw she was wondering whether he was wise enough to help her protege. "No, I spent the last three years in France." "Up at the front?" The pupils of her eyes dilated eagerly. "Yes, in every drive," he answered, wondering that a woman of this sort should be so interested now that the war was over. "And you came back safe!" she said slowly, looking at him with a kind of wistful sorrow in her eyes. "My boy was shot the first day he went over the top." "Oh, I'm sorry," said Reyburn gently, a sudden tightness in his throat. "But it was all right." She flashed a dazzling smile at him through the tears that came into her eyes. "It wasn't as if he wasn't ready. Johnny was always a good boy, an' he joined church when he was fourteen, an' always kep' his promises. He used to pray every night just as faithful, an' read his Bible. I've got the little Testament he carried all through. His chaplain sent it to me. It's got a bullet hole through it, and blood-marks, but it's good to me to look at, 'cause I know Johnny's with his Saviour. He wasn't afraid to die. He said to me before he left, he says: 'Ma, if anythin' happens to me it's all right. You know, Ma, I ain't forgettin' what you taught me, an' I ain't forgettin' Christ is with me.'" Mrs. Carson wiped her eyes furtively, and tried to look cheerful. Reyburn wished he knew how to comfort her. "It makes a man feel mean," he said at last, trying to fit his toe into the pattern of the ingrain carpet, "to come home alive and whole when so many poor fellows had to give their lives. I've often wondered how I happened to get through." She looked at him tenderly: "Perhaps your Heavenly Father brought you back to give you more chance to do things for Him, an' get ready to die when your time comes." There was something startling to this self-composed city chap in hearing a thing like this from the lips of the mother whose beloved son was gone forever beyond her teaching but had "been ready." Reyburn looked at her steadily, soberly, and then with a queer constriction in his throat he looked down at the floor thoughtfully and said: "Perhaps He did."