Meanwhile Frothingham, on his way to the handsome church, indulged in characteristic meditations of his own regarding Winifred’s strange freak.  He heartily hoped she would get over it.  It was a stupid turn for affairs to take as regarded himself; for perpetual meetings at the choir, with the pleasant walks attached, and frequent private rehearsals in the Gray drawing-room had furnished admirable facilities for the courtship of whose issue he had not a doubt.  But it was far from a misfortune that could not be mended.  He should miss her immensely, of course, but there were other pleasant people in the choir and he held an easy popularity among them.  Then he was too well ingratiated in her favor and as a frequent guest at her house to be displaced by this matter.  He should still do the attentive in every available way.  But he hoped she was not getting fanatical.  It would be inexpressibly stupid to have a wife over pious, with extreme views about things.  He should like her to be religious up to a certain point.  He thought women ought to be that.  It was a good thing to have somebody in a house who knew something about those things in case of trouble.  Mr. Frothingham was himself in the insurance business—­at the head of a prominent company’s office for that city—­and he was accustomed to take business-like account of life risks, and to recognize death as a hard factor to be dealt with.  Just now he unconsciously erected a kind of spiritual lightning rod against his future house in the piety of its expected mistress.  But he hoped she would not get too religious—­not enough so to interfere with the life of gayety which he expected to continue for many a year.  But it did not occur to him to relinquish her even if she should begin to show symptoms of extreme views.  He was rather fond of Winifred—­quite so, in fact; and he was not indifferent to “the old man’s ducats,” as he had confided to himself and to one or two most intimate friends.  On the whole he congratulated himself on pleasant prospects ahead, and was not too much disconcerted by his own appearance alone at the rehearsal.

Winifred spent the evening rather ill at ease.  Its pleasant habit was broken up.  Had she been foolish?  Was she not taking an unheard-of stand?  Would it have been better to go along and conform her course to the popular conscience instead of her own, perhaps very silly, one?  She should be laughed at, and it was miserable to be laughed at or thought eccentric.  She tried to play the piano, but imagined strains from the Redemption interrupted her.  She went to talk with her mother, but found her seated beside the library table with her embroidery while her father read aloud.

Mrs. Gray managed to utter an aside: 

“I had forgotten, child, that you were not going to the rehearsal.  How strange it seems!”

Winifred drifted away again, unable to listen to what her father was reading.  Hubert was nowhere to be found.  She went at last to her own room and did the best thing possible.  She poured out her heart before God, telling Him with the simplicity that had characterized her first coming to Him her perplexity and unhappiness.