then I'll tell him." He crossed the street and began slowly to climb the stairs. He reached the first landing and halted. "It won't do," he said. "Sawyer might find it out and that would ruin everything. I advised against it; I have done my best to prevent it, and it is now no concern of mine. I will go home. I have been foolish." He turned about and walked rapidly down the stairs. When he reached home his daughter had gone to bed, but his wife was sitting up, waiting for him. She met him at the door and looked at him, searchingly, as he halted in the light of the hall lamp to put the umbrella in the rack. "Did you see him?" she asked, not in the best of humor, now that the worry was practically over. "Sawyer? No, he's out in the country, so a man told me. I have decided to dismiss the matter from my mind or to think about it as little as possible. It isn't so very late yet," he added, looking at his watch. He found his slippers beside his chair when he entered the sitting-room, but he shoved them away with his foot. "Did Mr. Menifee have anything of interest to say?" he asked, leaning with his elbows on the table. "It may not interest you, but it has been put to Eva and me as a matter of duty, that we ought to go out to Mt. Zion to hear Henry Bostic preach." McElwin grunted: "Menifee may put it as a matter of duty, but I don't. Fortunately I have other duties that are of much more importance. I will not go." "He didn't seem to expect that you would," she replied. "I hope not. He may have reason to believe me worldly in some things, but I trust he has never found me ridiculous." "Would it be ridiculous to hear that young man preach?" "For me to hear him? Decidedly. The true gospel has not been handed over to the keeping of the malicious idiot, I hope." "I believe he is sincere." "Sincere? Of course he is. So is a wasp when it stings you." She laughed in her dignified way, her good humor having suddenly returned; and he looked up with a smile, pleased with himself. They sat for a time, talking of other matters, and he went to bed humming the defineless tune of self-satisfaction. But late in the night Mrs. McElwin awoke and found him standing at the window, listening. "What is it, dear?" she asked. "Nothing." "Then why are you standing there?" "I thought I heard something." "In the house?" she asked, rising up with sudden alarm. "No. Over in town, or rather over by the railroad track. I noticed some tramp-fires along there." "Oh, well, don't worry. The watchman will look after them." "Hush," he said, leaning from the window. "There it is again." "I don't hear anything," she declared. "Why, it's only a negro singing." "So it is," he said. "I thought it was someone yelling over in town. Are you sure that it was a negro singing?"