out the name Sharon Falconer while I was a stenographer. I never saw this house till two years ago; I never saw these old family servants till then—they worked for the folks that owned the place—and even they weren't Falconers—they had the aristocratic name of Sprugg! Incidentally, this place isn't a quarter paid for. And yet I'm not a liar! I'm not! I am Sharon Falconer now! I've made her—by prayer and by having a right to be her! And you're going to stop being poor Elmer Gantry of Paris, Kansas. You're going to be the Reverend Dr. Gantry, the great captain of souls! Oh, I'm glad you don't come from anywhere in particular! Cecil Aylston—oh, I guess he does love me, but I always feel he's laughing at me. Hang him, he notices the infinitives I split and not the souls I save! But you— Oh, you will serve me—won't you?"
"Forever!"
And there was little said then. Even the agreement that she was to get rid of Cecil, to make Elmer her permanent assistant, was reached in a few casual assents. He was certain that the steely film of her dominance was withdrawn.
Yet when they went in, she said gaily that they must be early abed; up early tomorrow; and that she would take ten pounds off him at tennis.
When he whispered, "Where is your room, sweet?" she laughed with a chilling impersonality, "You'll never know, poor lamb!"
Elmer the bold, Elmer the enterprising, went clumping off to his room, and solemnly he undressed, wistfully he stood by the window, his soul riding out on the darkness to incomprehensible destinations. He humped into bed and dropped toward sleep, too weary with fighting her resistance to lie thinking of possible tomorrows.
He heard a tiny scratching noise. It seemed to him that it was the doorknob turning. He sat up, throbbing. The sound was frightened away, but began again, a faint grating, and the bottom of the door swished slowly on the carpet. The fan of pale light from the hall widened and, craning, he could see her, but only as a ghost, a white film.
He held out his arms, desperately, and presently she stumbled against them.
"No! Please!" Hers was the voice of a sleep-walker. "I
