was sobbing on his breast: "Hold me close! I'm so lonely and afraid and cold."
Among his various relations to her, Elmer was Sharon's employee. And he resented the fact that she was making five times more than he of that money for which he had a reverent admiration.
When they had first made plans, she had suggested:
"Dear, if it all works out properly, in three or four years I want you to share the offerings with me. But first I must save a lot. I've got some vague plans to build a big center for our work, maybe with a magazine and a training-school for evangelists. When that's paid for, you and I can make an agreement. But just now— How much have you been making as a traveling man?"
"Oh, about three hundred a month—about thirty-five hundred a year." He was really fond of her; he was lying to the extent of only five hundred.
"Then I'll start you in at thirty-eight hundred, and in four or five years I hope it'll be ten thousand, and maybe twice as much."
And she never, month after month, discussed salary again. It irritated him. He knew that she was making more than twenty thousand a year, and that before long she would probably make fifty thousand. But he loved her so completely that he scarce thought of it oftener than three or four times a month.
Sharon continued to house her troupe in hotels, for independence. But an unfortunate misunderstanding came up. Elmer had stayed late in her room, engaged in a business conference, so late that he accidentally fell asleep across the foot of her bed. So tired were they both that neither of them awoke till nine in the morning, when they were aroused by Adelbert Shoop knocking and innocently skipping in.
Sharon raised her head, to see Adelbert giggling.
"How dare you come into my room without knocking, you
