Loretta's eyes sparkled. She thrust her hand in her pocket and drew forth a photographer's envelope. "Isn't it lucky," she cried, "I got these proofs only yesterday, and they're the living image of my baby." As she hastily removed the package from her pocket, together with her handkerchief, Loretta let a small bottle slip to the floor. Constance, who was spellbound with dismay at the turn of affairs, stooped mechanically to pick it up. She recognized the pellets lauded by Loretta. In doing so her head nearly bumped against that of Dr. Dale, who was intent on a similar purpose. He got possession of the bottle, and instinctively he glanced at the label before transferring it to Constance. She observed that he shrugged his shoulders. As she put out her hand to take it from him, she said in a low, resolute tone: "Will you tell me what those are?" Then as the physician regarded her searchingly, she added, "I have a special reason for asking. I wish to befriend her." "Cocaine tablets," answered Dr. Dale. "The woman has the appearance of a drug habitué." XXV In parting with the Rev. Mr. Prentiss without personal rancor and yet with an open avowal of his conviction that Constance would marry him in the end, Gordon Perry both made an admission and issued a challenge. His admission on the surface was simply that he recognized the rector's sincerity. In his own consciousness it went further; he recognized the validity of the conflict between them to an extent which he had up to this time failed to perceive, or at least to acknowledge. The effect of this was to intensify the ardor of his convictions, but at the same time to cause him as a lawyer to respect his opponent's position, though he believed it to be utterly false. The interview had been absorbing to him sociologically, for it had crystallized in his own mind as concrete realities certain drifts or tendencies of which he had been aware, but which he had hitherto never formulated in words. Now that the occasion was come for doing so, the indictment--for it was that--had risen spontaneously to his lips. It was clear to him, as he had informed Mr. Prentiss, that there was a direct strife in American social evolution between those who sought eternal truth through the free processes of the human spirit and those who accepted it distilled through an hierarchy.