She wandered aimlessly up and down the aisles, listening to sentences now and then, and sighing a little.  They were eloquent, they were helpful; she could imagine herself as being in a state to enjoy them heartily, but just now she wanted nothing so much as to know what to do in order to give herself a right to membership with that great religious world.  Why should Chautauqua suddenly desert her now when she so much needed its help?

“If I knew a single one of these Christian people I would certainly ask them what to do.”  This she said talking still to herself.  She had come quite away from the meeting, and was down in one of the rustic seats by the lake side.  It struck her as very strange that she had not intimate acquaintance with a single Christian.  She even traveled home and tried to imagine herself in conversation on this subject with some of her friends.  To whom could she go?  Mr. Wayne?  Why, he wouldn’t understand her in the least.  What a strange letter that was which she wrote him!  Could it be possible that it was written only yesterday?  How strange that she should have suggested to him to unite with the church!  How strange that she should have thought of it herself!

There came a quick step behind her, and a voice said, “Good-evening, Miss Erskine.”  She turned and tried to recall the name that belonged to the face of the young man before her.

“You do not remember me?” he said, inquiringly.  “I was of the party who went to Jamestown on the excursion.”

“Oh, Mr. Flint,” she said, smiling, and holding out her hand.  “I beg pardon for forgetting; that seems about a month ago.”

“So it does to me; we live fast here.  Miss Erskine, I have been looking for your party; I couldn’t find them.  Isn’t Miss Shipley in your tent?  Yes, I thought so.  Well, I want to see her very much.  I have something to tell her that I know will give her pleasure.  Perhaps you would take a message for me.  I want her to know that since last week, when she told me of her Friend who had become so dear to her, I have found the truth of it.  He is my Friend now, and I want to thank her for so impressing me with a desire to know him that I could not give it up.”

Ruth looked utterly puzzled.  Something in the young man’s reverent tone, when he used the word “Friend,” suggested that he could mean only the Friend for whom she herself was in looking; and yet—­Flossy Shipley!  What had she to do with him?

“Do you mean,” she said, hesitatingly, and yet eagerly, for if he indeed meant that here was one for whom she had been looking; “do you mean that you have become a Christian?”

“It is such a new experience,” he said, his face flushing, “that I have hardly dared to call myself by that name; but if to be a Christian means to love the Lord Jesus Christ, and to have given one’s self, body and soul, to his service, why then I am assuredly a Christian.”

This was it.  There was no time to be lost.  She had spent one night of horror, she could not endure another, and the day was drawing to its end.  To be sure she felt no terror now, but the night might bring it back.