women who had listened to his letters? It was, she saw, an astonishing, scandalous thing. What missionary had ever turned back from the path shown him by God? What was Philip to do if he was not to be a missionary?
She tried to imagine the confusion and trouble the affair must be causing Naomi, who was the child of missionaries. She had never really liked Naomi, but she felt sorry for her now, as sorry as it was possible for a mother to feel for the wife of her son. But Naomi, she thought, almost at once, was quite able to look out for herself, and she must be working on Philip, even now, to turn him back to God. Suddenly she had an unaccustomed feeling of warmth for Naomi. After all, Naomi had had a great success four years ago at the tent meetings. She had converted scores of people then; certainly she could do much to turn Philip from his colossal error and sin.
Her first impulse to take the letter to Elmer died abruptly, as a similar impulse had died twenty-four years earlier. For the present she would say simply that Philip and Naomi were on their way home to rest from their hardships, from the fevers and the wound which Philip had received during a native uprising. She regretted that Philip had not written some details of the affair, because it would have made a most fascinating story. The ladies would have been so interested in it. . . .
Rising, she removed the stamp for Elmer and then thrust the letter itself boldly into the blue flames of
