"There is but one word more, a word personal to us of this congregation, to be said. I need not recall to you the heavy privations that this church in which we now are has undergone. They were generously met and nobly borne, but, in spite of all your nobility and all your generosity, the time came, a week since, when it seemed indeed as if the forces of evil were about to conquer, and as if, unless Heaven intervened, this beautiful building must pass out of our hands. "Three days before the death of the man I have been speaking of this morning, an impulse came to me, and I wrote him a letter. My friends, I do not believe that that impulse was of this world. "I have since been told that when the letter reached him, his eyes were too dim to read it; yet, when he was informed of its purport, he asked that it be read to him. It was read, and then, with a hand already trembling at the touch of death, he took a pen and signed the last check of his career. That check was our emancipation; it was a check for the entire sum for which this Church of St. Athanasius—this beautiful church in which it is our privilege to worship God—stood indebted. I ask you to join in prayer for the soul of our dead benefactor and then to unite in the doxology for thanksgiving to God. ’Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?’" §8. "Where are you going?" gasped Betty. The people were kneeling, but Luke was on his feet. "I’m going to get out of here," he answered. "I’m going to get into the open. I want fresh air." He strode down the aisle under the clustered pillars of the triforium, and Betty hurried after. At the church door stood a table bearing a pile of leaflets, and unconsciously he took one as he passed. §9. In the sunlit street, he felt a little ashamed of his impetuosity. Betty was indignant. "Why did you make such a scene?" she asked. "I’m sorry," said Luke. "I simply couldn’t stand it. A priest talking like that! And Nicholson the priest!" "He shouldn’t have attacked you," Betty granted, "but you didn’t put him in the wrong by behaving impolitely." "Oh, I don’t care about putting him in the wrong, and I don’t care about his attacking me!" Luke helped her into the waiting motor, and the car started smoothly on its return journey. "What I couldn’t stand was the Church making a hero out of such a man; the Church selling itself for a few thousand dollars." "But the man did do good, Luke." "How much—compared with the evil he did?" "I can’t know that. Who can?" "You talk like Nicholson!" "No, I don’t." She put her hand on his. "But what good can come of abusing the man?" "I don’t want him abused: I only don’t want God’s Church to make a saint out of him." "Nobody’s doing that, Luke. They’re simply being decent about him. After all, he _is_ dead." Luke shook her hand free. Then, suddenly, he tossed back his head and broke into a high laugh. He frightened her. "Luke! What is it?"