“Where in thunder’ve you been, Court?  We were thinking of dragging the river for you.  I must say you’re the limit!  Do you know what time it is?”

“Five minutes after four by the library clock as I came up,” answered Courtland, affably.  “Say, Nelly, go to church with me again this morning?  I’ve found another preacher I want to sample.”

“Go to thunder!” growled Tennelly.  “Not on your tin-type!  I’m going to get some sleep.  What do you take me for?  A night nurse?  Go to church when I’ve been up all night hunting for you?”

“Sorry, Nelly,” said Courtland, cheerfully, “but it was an emergency call.  Tell you about it on the way to church.  Church don’t begin till somewhere round ’leven.  You’ll be calm by that time.  So long!  See you in church!”

Tennelly slammed his door hard, and Courtland went smiling to his room.  He knew that Tennelly would go with him to church.  For Courtland had seen among the advertisements in the trolley on his way back to the university, the notice of a service to be held in a church away down in the lower part of the city, to be addressed by the Rev. John Burns, and he wanted to go.  It might not be the John Burns of course, but he wanted to see.

Worn out with the events of the night, he slept soundly until ten.  Then, as if he had been an alarm-clock set for a certain moment, he awoke.

He lay there for a moment in the peace of the consciousness of something good that had come to him.  Then he knew that it was the Presence.  It was there, in his room.  It would always be his.  There might be laws attending its coming and going—­perhaps in some way concerned with his own attitude—­but he would learn them.  It was enough to know the possibility of that companionship all the days of one’s life.

He couldn’t reason out why a thing like that should give him so much joy.  It didn’t seem sensible in the old way of reasoning—­and yet, didn’t it?  If it could be proved to the fellows that there was really a God like that, companionable, reasonable, just, loving, forgiving, ready to give Himself, wouldn’t every one of them jump at the chance of knowing Him personally, provided there was a way for them to know Him?  They claimed it had never been proved, never could be.  But he knew it could.  It had been proved to him!  That was the difference.  That was the greatness of it!  And now he was going to church again to find out if the Presence was ever there!

With a bound he was out of bed, shaved and dressed in an incredibly short space of time, and, shouting to Tennelly, who took his feet reluctantly from the window-seat, lowered the Sunday paper, and replied, sulkily: 

“Thunder and blazes!  Who waked you up, you nut!  I thought you were good for another two hours!”

But they went to church.

Tennelly sat down on the hard wooden bench and accepted the worn hymn-book that a small urchin presented him, with an amused stare which finally bloomed into a full grin at Courtland.