"Worse'n that, Frank; I slipped clean into hell. I got with some fellows, went on a drunk, stayed a month and lost my place. I want you to loan me money to get to Baltimore, buy a decent suit of clothes, and I'll get another position. Yes, and I'll lift my head up and be a man." Gordon sent out to the bank and got the money for him. Another seedy one softly explained to him that he was a fellow countryman from Indiana. Gordon gave him a quarter. A sobbing woman closely veiled he recognised as a bride he had married in the church after prayer meeting two weeks before. "Doctor," she said in a whisper, "I've called to beg you please not to allow any one to know of my marriage. My husband turned out to be a burglar. He stole ten thousand dollars from an old lady who is one of our boarders, and skipped. He married me to get the run of the house. He tried to marry her first, though she was seventy-five years old, got in her room last night, stole the money, and now he's gone. I'm heartbroken!" "What! because he's gone?" "No; because I was a fool. I know he has a dozen wives. He was so handsome." "Madam, I'm not very sorry for you. I tried to prevent you marrying him that night. I begged you to go back to Jersey City to your own church." "You will keep it secret, Doctor?" she begged. "I'll not publish it. But the certificate is on file in the Hall of Records. Any one can see it who wishes. It is beyond my control." An old woman with bedraggled skirt, reddened eyes and a fat, motherly face timidly approached. She had been overlooked. "Doctor, you're my last chance. I come up to New York to see my son-in-law, as grand a rascal as ever lived. He owes me a thousand dollars and won't pay it. We lost our crop down in Old Virginia. So I scraped up the money and got here to squeeze what he owed out of that rascal. Now he's turned me out into the street and moved where I can't find him. I'm starvin' to death. I ain't got a cent to go home; an' what's worse'n all, I got a letter this mornin' tellin' me my idiot boy's down sick an' cryin' for me. I'm the only one can do anything for him. He can't understand nobody else." Her voice broke and she bit her lips to keep back the tears. "I've begged all day. Everybody laughs at me. I heard you preach one Sunday. I knowed you wouldn't laugh at me. I want you to loan me twenty dollars to get home quick. I'll start the minute I can get to the train, an' I'll pay you back if I have to sell my feather beds. Now, will you do it?" "Well, a more improbable story was never told a New Yorker, but something whispers to me you're telling the truth." "You'll do it?" "Yes." She drew a deep breath, and cried with streaming eyes: "Oh, Lord, have mercy on my poor soul, that I doubted You, and thought You had forsaken me!" Gordon handed her the cheque. "I'm going to kiss you!" she fairly screamed. Before he could lift his hand or protest, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.