CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
NEW YORK, 1896
Copyright, 1896, by
Charles Scribner’s Sons
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOK BINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
NOTE
Of the stories in this volume, “Witherle’s Freedom” and “Serene’s Religious Experience” were first published in The Century Magazine; “A Consuming Fire,” “Hardesty’s Cowardice” and “The Honor of a Gentleman” in Harper’s Weekly; “At the End of the World” in The Independent. Thanks are due the publishers of these periodicals for permission to reprint the stories here.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
|---|---|
| Witherle’s Freedom, | [1] |
| Serene’s Religious Experience; an Inland Story, | [19] |
| An Instance of Chivalry, | [45] |
| A Consuming Fire, | [71] |
| An Unearned Reward, | [89] |
| Hardesty’s Cowardice, | [111] |
| “The Honor of a Gentleman,” | [131] |
| Rivals, | [153] |
| At the End of the World, | [165] |
WITHERLE’S FREEDOM
His little world was blankly astonished when Witherle dropped out of it. His disappearance was as his life had been, neat, methodical, well-arranged; but why did he go at all?
He had lived through thirty-seven years of a discreetly conducted existence with apparent satisfaction; he had been in the ministry for fifteen years; he had been married nearly as long; he was in no sort of difficulty, theological, financial, or marital; he possessed the favor of his superiors in the church, the confidence of his wife, and he had recently come into a small fortune bequeathed him by a great-aunt. Every one regarded him as very “comfortably fixed”—for a minister.