“The reason that it’s been so misapplied as to have become nearly unintelligible. If you told the men at the club that such and such a thing was religion they’d most of ’em kick like the deuce; but when they get the thing without explanation they take to it every time. But you were asking me about my connection with the club. It began four years ago, when they first got into Miss Smedley’s house. Fellow had the old-fashioned horrors—bad. As I’d been making dipsomania a specialty Legrand railroaded me in, and there I’ve stayed.” When we drew up at the gate of an old yellow mansion standing in large grounds Cantyre left me in the machine while he went in to visit his patient. The blue-green hills were just beginning to veil themselves in the diaphanous mauve of afternoon, and between them the river with its varied life flowed silently and rapidly. It was strange to me to remember that a short time ago I had been wishing myself under it, and that this very water would be washing the oozy, moss-grown piles of Greeley’s Slip. _CHAPTER VII_ No later than that evening my life took still another step. A little before nine, just as I was about to go to bed—our hours at the club were early—Ralph Coningsby dropped in for a word with me. I happened to be at the foot of the stairs in the hall when Spender admitted him, and he refused to come farther inside. “Been dining with my wife’s father and mother over the way,” he said, in explanation of his dinner jacket and black tie, “and just ran across to say something while I was in the neighborhood. You said last night you’d come and see the Grace Memorial with me.” “If you say so,” I smiled, “I suppose I must have; but it’s the first time to my knowledge that I ever heard of it.” “Oh, that’s the bit of work I told you about—the thing I’m doing on my own. It’s over here at St. David’s. You see, when Charlie Grace died he left a sum of money to build and endow this institution in memory of his father.” I smiled again. “I know I must have heard the name of Charlie Grace, but it seems to have slipped my memory. All the same—” “I’ll tell you about him to-morrow. I merely want to say now that I’ll look in about ten in the morning, and take you across the street—” The difficulty I had had to confront in the afternoon was before me again. “I don’t know about that, Coningsby. The fact is I’m not—Well, hang it all! Can’t you see? I haven’t a rag in the world but what I stand up in, and I can’t go where I’m likely to run into decent people.” “You won’t run into any one but carpenters and painters. I’m not going to take no for an answer, old chap. Besides, there’s method in this madness, for—now don’t buck!—for I’m going to put you on a job.” I could only stare vacantly. “On a job?”