“Did you come here under the idea that I knew anything about him?”

“Well, no, I can’t say that I did; but I reckoned you knew your Bible pretty well, and that you were the nearest neighbour of mine that did.”  There was an attempt at nervous pleasantry in this, perhaps to hide real earnestness.

Trenholme frowned.  “I don’t understand you.”

“Well, ’twould be strange if you did, come to think of it; but I’m mighty uneasy about that old man, and I’ve come to ask you what the Bible really does say about the Lord’s coming.  Whether he’s crazed or not, that old man believes that He’s coming to-night.  He’s been telling the folks all day that they ought to go out with joy to meet Him.  I never thought of him budging from the house till some manifestation occurred, which I thought wouldn’t occur, but when I found just now he was gone, it struck me all of a heap that he was gone out with that idea.  I do assure you”—­he spoke earnestly—­“that’s what he’s after at this very time.  He’s gone out to meet Him, and I came to ask you—­well—­what sort of a place he’d be likely to choose.  He knows his Bible right off, that old gentleman does; he’s got his notions out of it, whether they’re right or wrong.”

Trenholme stared at him.  It was some time before the young man’s ideas made their way into his mind.  Then he wondered if his apparent earnestness could possibly be real.

“Your application is an extraordinary one,” he said stiffly.

Harkness was too sensitive not to perceive the direction the doubt had taken.  “It may be extraordinary, but I do assure you it’s genuine.”

As he grew to believe in the youth’s sincerity, Trenholme thought he perceived that, although he had asked what would be the probable direction of the enthusiast’s wanderings, the dentist was really stricken with doubt as to whether the prediction might not possibly be correct, and longed chiefly to know Trenholme’s mind on that important matter.

“This crazy fellow is astray in his interpretation of Scripture,” he said, “if he believes that it teaches that the Second Advent is now imminent; and his fixing upon to-night is, of course, quite arbitrary.  God works by growth and development, not by violent miracle.  If you study the account of our Lord’s first coming, you see that, not only was there long preparation, but that the great miracle was hidden in the beautiful disguise of natural processes.  We must interpret all special parts of the inspired Word by that which we learn of its Author in the whole of His revelation, otherwise we should not deal as reverently with it as we deal with the stray words of any human author.”

The young man, if he did not understand, was certainly comforted by this official opinion.

“I’m glad to hear you look upon it in that light,” he said approvingly, “for, to tell the truth, if I thought the millennium was coming to-night I’d be real scared, although I’ve lived better than most young men of my age do; but, some way, the millennium isn’t the sort of thing I seem to hanker after very much.  I suppose, though, people as good as you would like nothing so well as to see it begin at once.”