no soot in the air, and the stars seemed very close. For a moment they both stood listening, and at last Emma said, "Am I right, or am I growing deaf? Do the Mills sound very far away to-night . . . sort of weak?"
He listened, and then said, "Yes, it's queer. They sound almost faint."
There was another silence. And Emma gave a low, groaning sound. "Maybe that's it . . . maybe they've gone out on strike."
"There'll be trouble," said the Reverend Castor. "It makes me kind of sick to think of it."
They bade each other good-night, and went their ways, the Reverend Castor hurrying along, because he was more than an hour late. He knew that when he arrived she would be out of her bed, standing at the upper window looking for him, her mind charged with the bitter reproaches she had thought out to fling at him, torturing sarcasms dealing with what had kept him so long in the study. She had an obsession that he meant to be unfaithful to her; she never ceased to hint and imply the most odious things. She was always accusing him of disgraceful things about women. . . .
As he came nearer and nearer to the parsonage, he was seized by a terrible temptation to turn away, to disappear, never to enter the doors of his home again. But a man of God, he knew, couldn't do a thing like that. And now God—even God—seemed to be deserting him. He couldn't drive these awful thoughts from his mind. He began desperately to repeat his Psalm.
Turning past the hedge, he saw that there was a light in the upper window, and against the lace cur-
