And work Scott Brenton did. The parish was growing, month by month. The mere detail of its executive alone was enough to tax the strength of most men. Brenton managed it, however; he also contrived to get into the day's work as much of pastoral visitation as he could accomplish, without running into the adulation with which he was uncomfortably aware he was surrounded. The evenings and a good portion of the nights he devoted to his sermons which never had been so brilliant as now, never so vibrant with the essential truths of personal morality, of earnest service. Indeed, his professional life, just then, seemed rounding itself into a never-ending circle: the harder he worked, the more inspiring were his sermons, thus broadening and deepening his grasp upon his hearers. And this, in turn, put new vitality into his parish needs, and so increased his work past any computation. It would have been no especial wonder, then, that this revolving circle should shut him in entirely from any chance to see an old chum like Reed Opdyke. Opdyke himself accepted the explanation. Brenton knew it was false, and flagrantly so. He longed acutely to sit down beside his old friend, to unburden himself to the very dregs and then to sort over the dregs, discussing them and judging them in the light of Opdyke's old, shrewd common sense and in the clearer light of Opdyke's new and illuminating experience. How could he, though, when the whole mental situation had evolved itself over his kicking against the pricks administered to his old-time idol? To discuss the matter with Reed Opdyke would have been equivalent to sticking a knife into him, and then inviting him to take a microscope and study the composition of the drops that oozed up around the knife blade. And then, one day, he yielded to temptation, and went to call upon Reed Opdyke, not to indulge in theoretical discussion concerning the accident viewed as an exponent of universal truths; but for the simple sake of seeing his old friend and exchanging greetings. Indeed, where was the use of wasting the good material of friendship by seeking to convert it to a touchstone whereby to measure up one's theological beliefs? Reed was Reed, albeit flattened out upon his long, lean back, and not a culture-pan for psychological germs. A good deal to his own regret, Brenton met Olive Keltridge on the Opdyke's steps. "I'm so glad you've come, Mr. Brenton," she said cordially, as she gave him her hand in greeting. "Reed has been wondering what had become of you. No; not that, exactly. My father and I both had told him that Saint Peter's was working you to death. Still, he has missed you, and his father is actually pathetic in his mourning. He told me, yesterday, that you had never seen his new hood. Really, it sounded rather feminine, his pride in that new hood of his. You'd have thought it must be a creation of chiffon and ermine, not of ordinary brick and mortar. How is Mrs. Brenton?" "Quite well, thank you."