For a long time he sat there in communion with his own needs and nature, sobered by the silence of night and eternity so near him. When he arose, turning back toward the village, he paused on the brow of the hill, looking down upon it still and silent in the faint moonlight. Away to the right and pointing skyward, he saw the little spire of the church whose bell had recalled his early boyhood days and all the sweet and pure influences they had contained, even the face of his own mother, he knew he should never look upon again. And with that recollection came the half-pitiful words he had heard in that church that seemed like a plea for help from starvation. Winn was not religious. He had never been drawn toward an open profession of faith. He had at first felt church going and Sabbath-school lessons an irksome task, and later a social custom, useful because it bound together congenial people. He believed in God but not in prayer. His heart was in sympathy with all the carnal needs of humanity, but not the spiritual; those he considered figments of the imagination, useful, maybe, when old age came, but needless during healthy, active life. To the customary observance of them he always yielded respectful attention, but felt not their influence. And musing there it came to him that perhaps some divine power had directed his footsteps and brought him into the lives of these simple honest people for a purpose not understood. When he reached his room it was fragrant with the flowers Mona had given him that morning, and beside them lay the letter of Ethel Sherman. CHAPTER XIII WILD ROSES It has been said of the modern young lady that the more of her home life a gentleman saw, the less likely he was to fall in love with her; but as the days sped by and Winn saw more of Mona's, he felt that that truism was likely to be reversed.