The Seed of the Faith by Edith Wharton

In the market-place they parted. Willard Bent, after some hesitation, / had asked Harry Spink to come to the Mission that evening. "You'd better / come to supper-then we can talk quietly afterward. Mr. Blandhorn will / want to see you," he suggested; and Mr. Spink had affably acquiesced.

The prayer-meeting was before supper, and Willard would have liked to / propose that his friend should come to that also; but he did not dare. / He said to himself that Harry Spink, who had been merely a lay / assistant, might have lost the habit of reverence, and that it would be / too painful to risk his scandalizing Mr. Blandhorn. But that was only a / sham reason; and Willard, with his incorrigible habit of / self-exploration, fished up the real one from a lower depth. What he had / most feared was that there would be no one at the meeting.