AN ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE

"They tell me that I have stood for the last time in the pulpit of _All

People's_; that on Monday night I shall be unfrocked by the hands that

ordained me; for my ministerial standing was created by this church

which now proposes to take it away. This act, more than a court

conviction, will seem my ruin. I write to say I cannot call that ruin

to which a man goes willingly.

"It is not my soul that hangs in the balance, but another's. While this

man struggles, I declare again that I will not break in upon him. I can

reach out and touch him; but I will not. He will read this. I say to

him: 'Brother, wait! Do not hurry. I can hold your load a while until

you get the grapple on your spirit.'

"But for saying this, I am cast out.

"Men observe to me: 'What a pity!' I say to you: 'No pity at all!'

"Is a minister who would not thus suffer worthy to be a minister? The

conception can be broadened. Is any man? Is an editor worthy to be an

editor, a merchant, a teacher, a lawyer, a doctor, standing as each must

at sometime where the issue is sharply drawn between loyalty and

disloyalty to truth or trust,--is any of them truly worthy or truly

true, who would not willingly suffer all that is demanded of me?

"It does not require a great man to be true to the clasp of his hand:

nor a minister. I know policemen and motormen who are that. To be

that, upon the human side, has been almost the sum of my religious

practice--not my profession, but my _practice_. By that habit I have

gained what I have gained--_and lost what I have lost_. Humbled to the

dust, I dare yet to make one boast: I have not failed in these small

human loyalties, except as my capacities have failed.

"This last act of mine, which will be regarded as the consummation of

failure, is the greatest opportunity to be true that I have ever had.

"To go forth on foot before this community, held to answer for my

convictions, fills me with a sense of abandon to immolation upon high

altars that is almost intoxicating.

"I can almost wish it might never be known whether I spoke the truth or

not about the Dounay diamonds; that in my death, unvindicated, I might

lie yonder on the hills of Piedmont; that on a simple slab just large

enough to bear it, might be written no name but only this:

"'_He believed something hard enough to live for it._'

"I wish even that you might crucify me, take me out on Broadway here and

nail me to a trolley pole. But you will not do this. I am not so

worthy. You are not so brave. Those men had the courage of their

convictions who nailed up the Galilean and hurled down with stones the

first martyr. You have not. Courage to-day survives; but it is

reserved for ignoble struggles. Men are more ready to die for their

appetites than to live for their convictions. Men fear to be

uncomfortable, to be sneered at, to be defeated. Paugh! Defeat is not

a thing to fear. To be untrue is the blackest terror! To become

involved for the sake of one's convictions should not be regarded as

calamity. Yet it is,--in these soft days.

"The hope that the fall, even of one so humble and unimportant as I, may

be some slight protest against this spirit of weakness, takes out the

sting and gives me a delirious kind of joy.

"I would like to have been a great preacher. I am not. I would I had a

tongue of eloquence to fire men to this passion of mine. I have not.

That is the pity! I was proud and jealous of my position. I have lost

it.

"Yet I do not doubt that I shall find a field of usefulness. Deep as you

hurl me down, I do not doubt but that there are some to whom even if

condemned, spurned, unfrocked--oh, the eternal silliness of that! as if

any decrees of men could affect the standing or potentiality of a

soul--I can come as a welcome messenger of helpfulness. To them I shall

go! They may be found here. If so, I shall remain here--go in and

out--pointed at as the man who failed.

"Perhaps I can even make failure popular. It ought to be. There is a

great need of failures just now, for men who will fail for their true

success's sake.

"The world needs a new standard of appraisal. It honors the man whose

success bulks to the eye. It needs to be a little more discriminating;

to find out why some men failed, and to honor them because they are

failures. Some of the greatest men in America and in history were

failures. Socrates with his cup was a failure. Jesus was a failure.

It was written on his back in lines of blistering welts. It was nailed

into his palms, stabbed into his brow, hissed into his ear as he died.

"Re-reading at this midnight hour what I have written, I perceive that

it sounds slightly frenzied. But my soul just now is slightly frenzied.

If I wrote calmly, unegoistically, it would be a lie. What is written

is what I feel.

"Here and there some will approve this document. More will sneer at it.

But it is mine. It is I. I sign it. It is my last will and testament

in this community where once--daring to boast again--I have been a

power.

"Friends--and enemies alike!--this final word.

"I have not grasped much, but this: To be true. When somebody trusts you

worthily, make good. Be true, children, to the plans and to the hopes

of parents. Be true, lad, to the impetuous girl who has trusted you with

more than she should have trusted you. Be true, women, to your lovers

and your husbands; men to your wives, your partners, your fellow men,

your patrons; to your talents, your opportunities, your country, your

age, your world! Be true to God! If you have no God, be true to your

highest conception of what God ought to be.

"It sounds like a homily. It is a principle. You can multiply it

indefinitely. It runs like a scarlet thread through religion, and it

will go all around the borders of life.

"Eternal Loyalty is the Price of true Success.

"To this conviction I subscribe my name, myself and everything that

still remains to me.

"JOHN HAMPSTEAD,

"Pastor of All People's Church."

John felt that he wrote this and that he signed it in the presence of

the Presence. The address and not the sermon was his valedictory.

*CHAPTER XXXIX*

*THE CUP TOO FULL*

While the Monday morning papers played up the "Address to the People",

in the evening John noticed that his name had slipped off the front

page. This was at once a relief and a bitterness. It told him that he

was done for; that, as a matter of news, he was only a corpse waiting

for the funeral pyre. That pyre was a matter to which Elder Burbeck was

attending, assisted by a committee of fellow zealots--male and

female--who were industriously conducting a house-to-house canvass of

the entire membership of All People's during the hours between Sunday at

one and Monday night at eight. Despite the lofty mood of self-sacrifice

into which the man had worked himself, the knowledge of all this busy

bell-ringing and its sinister purpose operated irritatingly on the skin

of Hampstead. It made his flesh creep with annoyance that grew toward

anger.

But in the midst of these creepings, a significant thing happened. The

Reverend William Dudley Rohan, pastor of the largest, the richest, and

by material standards the most influential protestant congregation in

the city, came in person to call on Hampstead, to shake him by the hand

and say: "Your address had an apostolic ring to it. I believe in you

sincerely."

In John's mail that afternoon there came from Father Ansley, an

influential priest of the Roman Catholic communion, a letter to similar

effect.

Moreover, as the activity of Elder Burbeck developed, John began to hear

more and more from members of his own congregation who either refused to

believe the charges against him, or, if not so ready to acquit, none the

less refused to desert him now.

All of these things seemed definitely to testify that a wave of reaction

was upon its way. They almost gave the man hope. Yet by the end of an

hour of calculation, John saw that after all it was a small wave. All

People's church had more than eleven hundred members. He had not heard

from one fifth of them. Those who had communicated or come to press his

hand were very frequently the weak, obscure, and least influential.

They were the "riff-raff", as Burbeck would have called them, of the

congregation. The pastor did not disesteem their support on this

account. Instead he valued it a little more; yet gave himself no

illusions as to its value in a battle-line.

At the same time his friends urged him to organize against the assaults

of Elder Burbeck; to send out bell-ringing committees upon his own

account. Yet he would not do this. He would not make himself an issue.

But the minister's negatives were not so stout as they had been. It was

one thing to write in a frenzy at midnight how bravely he would endure

his fate. It was another to wait the creeping hours in passive

fortitude until the blow should fall.

By noon he confessed to himself that he was feeling rather broken. For

a week he had eaten little, and that little nervously, absently, and

without enjoyment. His sleep had been restless and unrefreshing.

Strong, vigorous as he was, reckless as were the draughts that could be

made upon his work-hardened constitution, a fear that it would fail him

now began to agitate the man. He must be strong--physically. He must

bear himself unyielding as Atlas. His shoulders, instead of sinking,

must stiffen as the still heavier load rolled upon them. But his mind

also must be strong.

He was almost mad with thinking on his course, with trying to reason out

some Northwest Passage for his conscience. Every eventuality had been

considered, every resulting good or injury taken into account. When he

did sleep, dreams had come to him--horrible, portending dreams that

lingered into wakefulness and filled the hours with vague,

tissue-weakening dread. He knew the meaning of this. His brain was so

wearied with thinking of the perplexities which bristled round him that

the very processes of thought had begun to operate less surely.

Conclusions that should have stood out sharp and clear became blurred.

Doubts and indecisions clamored round him. Things settled and settled

right came trooping back to demand realignment. This alarmed him more

than anything else,--the fear that the course he had chosen and which he

knew to be right, might seem, in some moment when his mind passed into a

fog, the wrong course; and he would falter not for lack of will but

because of the maiming of his judgment.

He longed for counsel, to talk intimately with some one, but was afraid,

afraid he might get the wrong advice and follow it. The loyalty of

Rose, the judgment of the Angel of the Chair, he trusted; but himself he

began to mistrust. Mistrusting himself, he dared not talk at all, lest

he either exhibit signs of weakness that would frighten Rose, or lest,

in that weakness, he confess too much to Mrs. Burbeck.

One fear like this and one alarm acted to produce another until

something like panic grew up in his soul. A small onyx clock was on the

mantel. The hands pointed to one--and then to two--and to three. At

eight he must go to the church and see himself accused by those whom he

loved, and for whom he had labored.

But at half-past three he saw clearly that his intended course was

wrong, that he should defend himself and speak the truth: that his

silence was working greater ill than good.

The clock tinkled four with this decision still clear in his mind. But

the tinkling sound appeared to ring another bell deep inside him--a bell

that boomed from far, far away and made him think of some one's

definition of religion, "as a power within us not ourselves that makes

for godliness." That power had spoken out. It revived the decision of

half-past three. His former course was right. He must not swerve.

With a gesture of pain and terror he flung up his hands to his brow.

The calamity had fallen. His mind was passing under a fog. Defiantly he

tried auto-suggestion to school his will against a possible reversal in

the hour of trial, saying to himself over and over again: "I will stand!

I will stand! I will stand!" He quoted frequently the words of Paul:

"And having done all, to stand!"

At length he fell back limply in his chair. A vast irksomeness had

taken possession of him. He was tired--tired of thinking of It--tired

of waiting for It to come. Why didn't the clock hurry? The coming of

Tayna to the study alone brought a welcome to his eye. Tayna! So full

of buoyant, blooming youth; so quickly moved to tears of sympathy; so

lightly kindled to smiling, happy laughter! Tayna, her melting eyes,

her red cheeks, her one intermittent dimple, who flung her long arms

about her uncle and held him close and silently as if he had been a

lover!

But it was only a moment until Tayna too irked the tortured man. The

touch of her cheek upon his cheek and the aggressive mingling of her

thick braids with his own disheveled locks, once brushed so neat and

high, now so apt to loop disconsolate upon his temples, reminded him of

something quite unbearable but quite unbanishable,--a vision, and a

vision which must be entertained alone.

"Stay here and keep shop," her uncle said with sudden brusqueness,

forcing her down into his own chair at the desk. "I can see no one;

talk to no one; hear from no one. I am going up-stairs!"

"Up-stairs" meant the long, half-attic room in which Hampstead slept.

It ran the length of the cottage. There were windows in the gables, and

dormers were chopped in upon the side toward the Bay. At one end,

pushed back toward the eaves, was a bed, fenced from the eye by a

folding screen. Far at the other end was a table, a student-lamp and a

few books. Between lay a long, rug-strewn space which Hampstead called

his "tramping ground."

Here, when he wished to retire most completely from the public reach, he

made his lair. Upon that rug-strewn space he had tramped out many of

the problems of his ministry. In the past week he had walked miles

between one gable window and the other, and stopped as many times to

gaze out through the dormer windows over the crested tops of palms to

the dancing waters on the Bay.

But now he had retreated there, not to be alone, but because he felt a

sudden longing for companionship; and for a certain and particular

companionship. That touch of Tayna's soft cheek upon his own had

brought with stinging poignancy the recollection of what the presence of

Bessie would be now,--Bessie as she once had been, dear, loyal,

sympathetic, wise; as she had begun to be again before that last trip

east; as she would have been when she returned and found him still

strong and faithful.

Yet now she would never come. She was in Chicago to-day--no, upon the

Atlantic. Last week was her final week. She had been getting her

degree there while his unfrocking was beginning here. She was attaining

her high hope as he was losing his. He had meant to telegraph her his

congratulations, but he had forgotten it. That was just as well now.

All this hissing of the poisoned tongues must have poured into her ears.

The old doubts would be revived. She would feel herself shamed,

humiliated, all but compromised by these disclosures, and she would

never see--never communicate with him again. No letter had come in that

last week, no telegram from the ship's side. That proved it clearly.

She was lost to him.

Yet now his church--his liberty--his reputation--nothing else that he

had lost or might lose seemed worth while. He wanted only her, cared

only about her. His duty had melted into mist. He could not see its

outlines. But there was a face in the mist, her face; and a form, her

form. And he would never see her in any other way but this way--a

vision to haunt and mock and torture him.

Thinking these thoughts over and over again, the man walked steadily

from gable's end to gable's end and back again, until his legs lost all

sense of feeling; but still he walked, and occasionally his fists were

clenched and beat upon his chest, while an expression of agony looked

out of his eyes.

The Reverend John Hampstead, pastor of All People's, a man of some

victories and of some defeats, a man of some strength and of some

weaknesses, was fighting his most important and his hardest battle, and

he knew it. And he was no longer fit. The preliminary days of battling

in the lower spurs and ranges had exhausted him. The summit was still

above. The higher he toiled, the weaker he grew; the greater need for

strength, the less he had to offer. He felt his purpose sag, his

courage breaking. He had faced too much, and faced it too long and too

solitarily. Others had sympathetically tried to get into his heart, and

he had shut them out. It was a place which only one could enter, and

she was not there. Now he knew that she would never be there.

That was the final mockery of his fate. At the time when he loved her

most, when he needed her most, when before God, he deserved her most,

she was most irretrievably lost. The pang of this, the awful

inevitableness of it, broke him like a reed. From time to time he had

sighed heavily, but now a dry sob shivered in his broad breast. His

shoulders shook, and then his legs crumpled under him; he was on his

knees and sinking lower and lower, like a man beaten down, blow upon

blow, until at length he lies prostrate before his foes.

"Not that, O God," he sobbed; "not that! I cannot--I cannot lose her.

Leave me, oh, leave me this one thing! I ask nothing more! Nothing

more."

There was silence for an interval and then the pleadings began more

earnestly, more piteously. "O God, give me her! Give me love! Give me

completeness! Give me that without which no man is strong, the

undoubting love of an unwavering woman! Give me that and I can face

anything--endure anything!"

For a moment his hands, virile and outstretched, grasped convulsively

the far edges of the Indian rug on which he had fallen, and thrust

themselves through the stoutly woven fabric as if it had been wet paper.

Scalding drops had begun to flow from his eyes like rivers. He seized

the fabric of the rug in his teeth and bit it. He forced the thick

folds against his eyes as if to dam the flooding tears.

"It is too much! It is too much!" he moaned. "O God," he reproached,

"you have left me; you have left me alone and far. I have stood, but I

am tottering." He dropped into a sort of vernacular in his blind

pleadings. "I can go, I can go the route, but I cannot go it alone. Give

me her, O God, give me her!"

His voice, half-delirious, died out in a final withering sob, as if the

last atom of his strength had gone with this passionate, hoarse,

uttermost plea of his soul. His great fingers stretching out again to

the limit of his arm, knotted and unknotted themselves and then grew

still. The shoulders, too, were motionless. The face was turned on one

side; the profile of the ridged forehead and the thrust of nose and

chin, so strongly carved, appeared against the grotesque pattern of the

rug as features delicately chiseled. The eyes were open, tearless now

and staring. They had expression, but it was the expression of the

beaten man. The mouth was parted, and the firm lines were gone from it.

It was the old, loose, flabby mouth that had once marked the weak spot

in the character of the man. Again the man was weak. He lay so still

that life itself seemed to have gone. The wandering afternoon breeze

that stole in through one gable window and went romping out at the other

played with the mass of hair upon his brow as indifferently as if it had

been a tuft of grass.

Even the man's enemies must have pitied him had they seen him now.

Searle, standing over him, would have felt a twinge of conscience.

Elder Burbeck, before that spectacle, would at least have paused long

enough to murmur, sincerely, with upturned eyes and a grave shake of the

head, "God be merciful to him, a sinner." But neither Searle nor

Burbeck, nor any other eye was there to see how he lay nor how long.

Perhaps not even Tayna, crouching on the stairs outside, hearing his

sobbings and venting tear for tear, could have computed the time.

Surely the man knew nothing himself except that he fell asleep and

dreamed, this time not horribly, but felicitously,--a dream of Bessie;

that she was coming to him; that she was there. It was such a beautiful

dream. It took all the strain out of the muscles of his face. It

tickled the flabby mouth into smiles of happiness. It triumphed over

everything else. It made every experience through which he had gone

seem a high and beautiful experience because it brought him Bessie.

A knock at the door awoke him. It was such a cruel awakening. Bessie

was not there. His cheeks were hard and stiff where tears had dried

upon them. His shoulders and neck ached from the position in which he

had slept. The rug was rumpled. The room was bleak and desolate. The

breeze was chill and gloomy. The situation in which he stood came to

him again with appealing acuteness and stung his memory like scourging

whips. He rose with pain in his mind, pain in his heart, pain in every

tissue of his body.

But there are worse things than pain. John was appalled to realize that

he had risen a quaking coward.

The knock had sounded again. It was a soft knock, but it echoed loud,

like the crack of doom. It stood for the outside world; it stood for

the accusing finger; it stood for the felon's brand; it stood for the

great monster, Ruin, which threatened him, which terrorized him, which

he had faced courageously, but which at last through the workings of his

own morbid imagination and the tentacles of a great love, torn

blood-dripping from his heart, had over-awed him. Before this monster

he now shrank, cowering as only six days before he had seen Rollie

Burbeck cower. He said to himself that he, John Hampstead, was the

greater coward. Rollie had faltered in the face of his crime. He, the

priest of God, was faltering in the face of his duty. He retreated from

his own presence aghast at the thought. He looked about him wildly, and

saw his features in the glass. It was a coward's face. He felt

something stagger in his breast. It was his coward's heart!

Again the knock sounded. Not because he had grown brave again, but

because he had grown too weak to resist even a knock upon a door, he

gave the rug a kick that half straightened it, and in the tone of one

who, despairing help, bids his torturers advance, he called: "Come in."

But instead of waiting to see who entered, he turned his back and walked

off down the room with slow, disconsolate stride, head hanging,

shoulders drooping, knees trembling, feet dragging, utterly unmindful to

preserve longer the pose of strength even before the dear ones whom he

wished above all to see him brave and strong.

It was the silence of the one who entered that made him turn slowly,

staring, his form lifting itself to its full height, and a hand rising

to sweep the hanging hair from his eyes as he gazed for a moment in

unbelieving bewilderment and then hoarsely shouted:

"Bessie! Bessie! Is it you?"

Before the broken, paralyzed man could leap to meet her, the young woman

had flung herself into his arms, with a cry almost of pain: "John! Oh,

John!"

He clasped her hysterically, half laughing and half sobbing: "Thank God!

Thank God!" and then, murmuring incoherently, "It is the answer of the

Father! It is the answer of the Father!"

Bessie, the first surge of her emotions over, stood looking up into

John's storm-stressed face, with glistening, happy eyes.

It was evident that all the vapor of her doubt and misunderstanding had

been burned away. She was again the old Bessie. She had started to him

by an instinct of loyalty, spurred by a love that had refused to die,

yet, womanlike, was still doubting. But the moving picture which the

papers of succeeding days had reeled before her eyes as her train sped

westward; the solemn face of Rose, the teary eyes of Tayna, whom she had

found sitting at the foot of the stairs outside; and now this glimpse of

that stooping, passionately despairing, hopelessly broken figure were

enough to banish doubt forever. They testified that John Hampstead, in

the soul of him, was true--to love as to duty--that he had burned out

the scar of his first disloyalty to her in the fires of intense

suffering.

Her radiant beauty, the soft, trusting blue of her eyes, the wonderful

witchery of smiling lips and dimpling cheeks, the proud, happy,

worshipful look upon her face, all proclaimed the bounding joy with

which she hurled herself again into his life.

John perceived this in ecstasy. Bessie was not lost to him, but won to

him by what had happened. The mere perception threw him into a frenzy

of joy, and yet it was a reversal of probabilities so sudden and so

overwhelming that he dared not accept it unattested.

"But, Bessie," he protested. "But, Bessie?"

"But nothing!" she answered stoutly, flinging her arms once more about

his neck and drawing his lips down to hers, while she passionately

stamped them again and again with the seal of her love and faith.

With the submission of a child, and under the stimulus of such

convincing, such deliciously thrilling demonstration as this, the

strong-weak man surrendered unconditionally to an acceptance of facts at

once so undeniable and so excitingly happy.

But the articles of surrender could not be signed in words. He drew her

close to him and held her there long and silently, feeling his heart

beat violently against her own, and at the same time his tissues filling

with new and glowing strength. A sigh from Bessie, softly audible and

blissfully long-drawn, broke the silence and the pose.

John held her at arm's length--his eyes a-dance with the emotional riot

of an experience so foreign to the ascetic life which his character had

forced upon him that he felt the wish for anchorage at which to moor

himself and his joys. Such a mooring was offered by the long, wide

window seat before the dormer which looked over palms and acacias to the

Bay.

Taking Bessie by the hand, he led her to this tiny haven.

"Oh, John," she murmured, with a flutter in her voice and a sudden gust

of happy tears, as she cuddled down against his shoulder, "it has been

such a long, cruel wait, hasn't it? Such a hilly, roundabout way that

we have traveled to know and get to each other at last."

"But now it's over," he breathed contentedly, swaying her body gently

with his own.

As if a tide had taken them, they drifted out; two argonauts upon the

sea of love with the window seat for a bark, and soon were cruising far

out of sight of land. There was little talk. Words were so unnecessary.

To feel the presence of each other was quite enough. For the time

being, degrees and careers and private cars, courts and newspapers,

actresses and diamonds, elders and church trials, were sunk entirely

below the horizon.

Bessie was first to come back from this nebulous state of bliss to the

more tangible realities of the situation. With her lover so close and so

secure, she experienced a stirring of possessive instincts accompanied

by an impulse to caretaking. John was hers now, and he required

attention. With a soft hand she smoothed the yellow locks backward from

his brow. With pliant fingers she sought to iron out the lines of care

from his face, and with lingering, affectionate lips to kiss the

tear-stiffness from his eyelids.

To the man of loneliness, these attentions were exquisitely delightful.

They soothed and fortified him. They calmed his nerves and ministered to

clarity of thought. This was well, for there were things that needed to

be said as well as those which needed to be done.

Dusk was falling. John arose, lighted a pendant bulb in the center of

the long attic, and sat down again, taking Bessie's hand in his while he

told her the story of the diamonds as he had told it in court--told her

so much and no more; then stopped. The cessation was abrupt, decisive,

but also interrogatory. John could not tell Bessie more than he could

tell any one else and be true to his vow. Would she appreciate this and

acquiesce? Or would she resent it?

Bessie understood the question in the silence. Her answer was to

snuggle closer and after allowing time for this action to interpret

itself, to say:

"That must be the bravest, hardest thing you have done, John dear; to

stop just there, when telling me."

"It was," he answered softly.

"It makes me trust you further than ever," she assured him, passing her

hand under his chin and pulling his cheek to hers, again with that

instinct of possession. "You must not be less true but more, because of

me," she breathed softly.

"But there is one thing I can tell you," he continued, "which no one

else knows nor can know now."

And then he told her of Marien's visit. The girl listened at first with

cheeks flaming hot and her blue eyes fixed and sternly hard. Yet as the

narrative proceeded, she grew thoughtful and then considerate, breaking

in finally with:

"But she did it so wantonly, so irresponsibly; what reparation does she

propose?"

"To immediately make a public confession that her charge against me was

utterly false," replied John, strangely moved to speak defensively for

Marien.

"She will do that?" exclaimed Bessie, her face alive with excitement and

intense relief.

"She would have done it," answered John, "but I forbade her."

"Forbade her? Oh, John!" The soft eyes looked amazement and reproach.

"Yes," acknowledged John in a steady voice. "You see, her word would

become instantly worthless. To be believed, her confession would have

to be supported by the naming of the real thief."

"And is the saving of a thief worth more to you than your church--your

good name--your--your everything?"

"In my conception, yes," John answered seriously. "That is what I have a

church, a name, everything, for; to use it all in saving people--or in

helping them, if the other is too strong a word."

As her lover spoke in this lofty, detached, meditative tone, Bessie held

him off and studied him. This was the new John Hampstead speaking; the

man she did not know; the man who, up to the hour when cruel scandal

smirched it, had stirred this community with the example of his life.

Before this new man she felt her very soul bowing. She had loved the

old John. She adored the new.

"Oh, John! How brave! How strong! How right you are!" she exclaimed,

with a note of adoration in her voice.

A pang of self-reproach shot through the big man.

"Not so brave--not so strong as I must--as I ought to be," he hastened

to explain. "In fact, I have been doubting even if I were right, after

all."

Bessie's startled look brought out of him like a confession the story of

the last hours before her coming; the full meaning of the state in which

she found him; how the burden of it all had overtoppled him; how she had

come to find him not brave and certain, but doubting.

"But now," she affirmed buoyantly, "you are strong, you are certain

again."

The very radiance, the fresh youthful happiness on the face of Bessie,

checked the assent to this which was on his lips. He suddenly thought

of what this action would mean to her, this beautiful, loving, aspiring

young woman. She was his wife now in spirit. By some miracle of God

their lives had in a moment been fused unalterably. He might bear a

stigma for himself, but had he a right to assume a stigma for her?

"Why, John," she murmured, wonder mingling with mild reproach, as she

saw him hesitate.

"Listen, my girl," began her lover, with infinite sympathy and

tenderness in his manner, and gravely he re-sketched the elements in the

situation as they would apply to her.

Bessie did listen, and as gravely as John spoke to her,--listened until

her eyes were first perplexed and then downcast. Sitting thus, seeing

nothing, she saw everything; all that it might mean to her to become the

partner of this public shame. She thought of her college friends, of

her mother with her social aspirations, of her strong and high-standing

father and the circle of his business and personal associates; of the

part she hoped herself to play in the new political life that was coming

to her sex. She saw it and for a moment was afraid, cowering before it

as her lover had cowered. John, in an agony of suspense, watched this

conflict staging itself graphically upon the features he loved so

deeply, gleaning as he waited another two-edged truth, and that truth

this: _The love of a woman may make a man surpassingly stronger; it may

also make him immeasurably weaker_. It depends on the woman. He was

weaker now. He had accepted her, demanded her of God, and God had given

her. She was part of him now. It must no longer be his judgment but

their judgment which ruled. She was forming their judgment now. He

leaned forward apprehensively, like a criminal awaiting his fate. He

had surrendered his independence of action. Had he gained or lost

thereby?

Bessie stood up suddenly. Her face was still white, but her square

little chin with its softly rounded corners was firmly set.

"Your decision," she affirmed stoutly, "was the right decision. Your

course has been the right course. You must not waver now. I command--I

compel you to go straight forward. And I will stand with you--go out

with you. From this moment on, your duty is my duty; your lot shall be

my lot."

A smile of heavenly happiness broke like a sunset on the face of

Hampstead.

"Thank God!" he murmured reverently; "thank God!"

And then as a surging Niagara of new strength rushed over him, he

clasped her tightly, exclaiming enthusiastically: "I feel strong enough

now, strong enough for everything!"

Standing thus, smiling blissfully into each other's faces, the lovers

became again the two argonauts upon a shoreless, timeless sea. As they

came back, Bessie, a look half mischievous and half bashful upon her

face, pleaded softly:

"John! Ask me something, please?"

"Ask you something," her lover murmured, with a look of dutiful

affection, "why, there is nothing more that I can ask." He sighed

contentedly.

"But put it into words. Something to which I can answer Yes," she said,

a happy blush stealing across her cheeks.

The big man gazed at her with a puzzled expression.

"So--so that our engagement can be announced in the papers to-morrow

morning."

John asked her, grimacing delight in his sudden comprehension, and took

her answer in a kiss. But immediately after he became serious.

"To-morrow morning?" he queried apprehensively; and then answered the

interrogation himself. "No, not to-morrow, Bessie. Not soon. Later.

When the issues are decided. When we know the worst that is to fall.

Not now. You must protect yourself as well as your father and your

mother from such notoriety!"

But Bessie's own uncompromising spirit flashed.

"No," she exclaimed with a stamp of her foot that was characteristic.

"Now! This is when you need me! Now you are my affianced husband; I

want the world to know that he is not as friendless as he seems. That

we who know him best believe him most. Do you know, big man, that my

parents cancelled their European trip and have been rushing across the

continent with me in a special train faster than anybody ever crossed

before, just to come and stand by you. Mother had a headache and is

resting at the St. Albans, but father and I--why, father is down-stairs

in the study waiting. He must have been there hours and hours.

Father!"

Bessie had rushed across the room and flung open the door leading

downward.

"Father," she cried. "Father! We are coming."

"What's the hurry?" boomed back a big, ironic voice that proceeded from

the round moon of an amiable face in the open door of the study near the

foot of the stairs. The face, of course, belonged to Mr. Mitchell, and

he enlarged upon his first gentle sarcasm by adding: "I bought a

thousand freight cars the other day in less time than it has taken you

people to come to terms."

Nevertheless, he greeted his former employee with cordial and sincere

affection, while Bessie, radiantly happy but a little confused, asked:

"What must have you been thinking all this time?"

"Mostly I was thinking what a superfluous person a father comes to be

all at once," laughed Mr. Mitchell. "Isn't there anything I can do at

all?" he asked, with mock seriousness.

"Yes," rejoined Bessie in the same spirit. "Telephone the papers to

announce the engagement of your daughter to the Reverend John Hampstead,

pastor of All People's Church."

"Oh, I did that after the first hour and a half," exclaimed the railroad

man, laughing heartily.

But the situation was too grave, the feelings of all were too tense, to

sustain this spirit of badinage for long. Bessie and Tayna fell upon

each other with instant liking. Even Dick and Rose seemed able to forget

the crisis which overhung them in the sudden advent of this beautiful

young woman who had come into their ken again so suddenly and so

mysteriously, and seemed to represent in herself and her father such a

sudden and vast access of prestige and power to the cause of their uncle

and brother.

John and his old employer sat down in the study for a quiet talk in

which the minister related what he had told Bessie, the circumstances in

which he stood, and finally and especially, his new compunction and

Bessie's firm decision.

"She was right!" The heavy jaws of Mitchell snapped decisively. "The

whole thing is a community brain storm. It will pass."

"The criminal charge," began John, feeling relieved and yet looking

serious.

"Nothing to that at all," answered the practical Mitchell, with quick

decision. "Ridiculous! You're morbid from brooding over all this.

From the minute this woman comes to you with her admission, you must

have just ordinary horse sense enough to see that between us all we can

find a way to stop that prosecution without making it necessary to

expose anybody at all."

Mitchell, observing Hampstead closely, saw that he was rather careless

of this; that in fact he only thought of it when he thought of Bessie;

that the one thing gnawing into him now was the action of the church.

That was something outside of Mitchell's experience. Whether a church

more or less unfrocked his future son-in-law was small concern. He was

a man who thought in thousands of miles and millions of people.

"Come, Bessie," he called, "we must be getting back to the hotel."

"You will stay for dinner, Mr. Mitchell?" suggested John.

"No, I'll be getting back to mother. I just came to tell you that I am

with you. My attorneys will be your attorneys. My friends and my

influence will be your influence. Some of these newspapers may bark out

of the other corner of their mouths after they've heard from me. Come

on, Bessie!"

"But," demurred Bessie, "I'm not coming. I am going to the church

to-night to sit beside John."

*CHAPTER XL*

*THE ELDER IN THE CHAIR*

The auditorium of All People's was cunningly contrived to bring a very

large number of people close to each other and to the minister. Roughly

semicircular, with bowled main floor and rimmed around by a gallery that

edged nearer and nearer at the sides, it was possible to seat fifteen

hundred persons where a man in the pulpit could look each individual in

the eye, and except where the screen of the gallery broke in, each

auditor could see every other auditor.

The special meeting for an object unannounced but clearly understood

was, of course, an assemblage of the church itself; yet so great was the

general interest in what was to transpire, and so willing were the

moving spirits to play out their act in public, that no one was turned

away. By an instruction from Elder Burbeck, the ushers merely sifted

people, sending the members to the main floor, and the non-members

up-stairs into the gallery.

Hampstead entered the church at precisely eight o'clock.

The auditorium was filled with the buzz of many voices, but as the

pastor of All People's advanced down the aisle, this hum gradually

ceased, and every eye was turned upon the man, who tall and grave, with

features slightly wasted, nevertheless wore a look serenely confident

and even happy.

This expression in itself was instant occasion for wonder and surprise.

Was this man really unbreakable? Knowing nothing of what had happened in

the day to encourage its pastor and make him strong, his congregation

was much better prepared to see him as Bessie had found him three hours

before than as he now appeared.

There were glances also for the faithful Rose, pale and worn, but

bearing herself with true Hampstead dignity; for aggressive, wizened

Dick, and for Tayna, emotional and ready, as usual, for tears or

laughter. But there were more than glances for the lady who walked at

the pastor's side proudly, with a possessive air as if she owned him and

were glad to own him. There was searching scrutiny and attempt at

appraisal.

All People's had never seen this woman before. She looked young; yet

bore herself like a person of consequence. She was beautiful, but the

dignity of her beauty was detracted from by dimples. Yet with the

dimples went a masterful self-possession and a chin that was a trifle

square and to-night just a trifle thrust out, while her head was a

little tilted back and her blue eyes were a little aglint with shafts of

a light something like defiance, as if to say: "Hurt him at your peril.

Take him from me if you can!"

Who was she? No one knew. Everybody asked; but no one answered.

After standing in the aisle before his family pew, while Rose, Dick,

Tayna, and Bessie filed in before him, the minister stood for a moment

surveying the scene. As he looked, the serenity upon his features gave

way to pain. The situation saddened him inexpressibly. He was like a

refugee who returns to find his home ruined by the ravages of war. How

peaceful and how helpful had been the atmosphere of All People's! How

happily he had seen its walls rise and its pews fill! How many good

impulses had been started there! What a pity that the note of

inquisition and of persecution should now be sounded. How sad that

strife should come! And over him of all beings! He had often looked

upon a congregation torn by dissensions concerning its pastor, and he

had said that no church should ever undo itself over him. When his time

came to go, he would go quietly.

Yet now he was not going quietly, but that was because he felt it was

not himself that was involved; instead it was a principle. Either this

congregation existed to mediate love, helpfulness, and a charitable

spirit to the world, or it had no reason for existence at all. It had

better be disrupted, this gallery fall, this altar crumble, these walls

collapse, these people be scattered to the winds, than All People's

become a society for the advancement of pharisaism.

He noted that the gallery was packed, but on the main floor empty spaces

stared at him from the central tier of pews. Half of All People's

members must have remained away. John realized with new emotion what

this meant: that there were men and women in his congregation who could

not see their pastor arraigned like this, who could not bear to witness

the rising waves of bitterness, the charges and the counter-charges, the

incriminations, the malicious spirit of partisanship which invariably

breaks out in times like these. But it meant too that these same

soft-hearted folk were also soft in the spine; unwilling to take a stand

with him; unwilling to be recorded pro or con upon a great issue like

this; people for whom he had done a service so great that they could not

now turn down their thumbs against him, yet lacking in the strength of

character either to sit as his judges or to cast a vote in his favor.

From this thought of jelly-fish the minister turned, almost with relief

to where, stretching widely behind the Burbeck pew, was a mass of

close-packed faces, with super-heated resolution depicted upon their

features. The bearing of these partisans in itself reflected how they

had been solicited, inflamed, and organized. They were there like an

army to follow their leader.

Good people, too, some of them! Doctor Hampstead's very best people.

Yet to recognize them and their mood gave him a sense of personal power.

He believed that he could walk over there and talk to these people ten

minutes, and they would break like sheep from the leadership of Brother

Burbeck. They would come pressing around him with tears and expressions

of confidence. But it was not in John's purpose to do that. He was on

trial. If on the record of his life among them, these people could

condemn and oust him, his work had been a failure. It was as well to

know it.

One thing more the minister took into account. The number of persons

who, half in an attitude of aggressive loyalty and half in tearful

sympathy had gathered in the tiers behind his own pew was less by half

than that massed behind the Burbeck leadership. The issue was not in

doubt. It had been decided already,--in the newspapers, in the court

room, and in all this busy bell-ringing of the last two days.

And now, having seen as much and reflected as much as has been recorded,

Hampstead sat down and slipped a furtive lover's hand along the seat

until it found the hand of Bessie, and took it into his with a gentle

pressure that was affectionately reciprocated.

But if to the congregation the entry of the minister and the woman of

mystery by his side was sensation number one in this evening of

sensations, the entry of the Angel of the Chair was sensation number

two. Mrs. Burbeck, propelled as usual by Mori, the Japanese, was just

appearing at the side door; and this time there was no trundling to the

center between two factions. Instead, with Japanese intentness of

purpose, and as if he had his instructions beforehand, Mori drove the

chair straight across the neutral ground to the end of the Hampstead

pew.

The church, seeing this act, grasped instantly its solemn meaning. The

house of Burbeck was divided against itself. Mrs. Burbeck had often

disapproved of her husband's course in church leadership, but she had

never taken sides against him. To-night she did so. The issue was too

great, too fundamental, to do otherwise. That it hurt her painfully was

evident. Her face had lost its smile. The pallor of her cheeks was more

wax-like than ever, and there was a droop in the corners of her mouth

that no physical suffering had effected. But the lips were tightly

compressed, and the valiant spirit of the woman looked resolutely out of

her eyes. Those near and watching the face of her husband saw that this

look affected him; saw him start as if he had hardly expected such

action, hardly realized what it would be to find her thus opposing him.

They even noted that a fleeting expression of doubt, of sudden loss of

faith in his own course, came into the eyes of the man.

Nevertheless, although with a sigh at the burdens his faithfulness to

the Lord so often compelled him to bear, Elder Burbeck set his spirit

sternly upon its task. He was the Nemesis of God. He would not shrink

though the flame scorched him, the innocent, while it consumed the

guilty.

Yet from the moment that this glance had passed between the husband and

the wife, it appeared that a gloom of tragedy settled upon the

gathering. Again the congregation sank of itself to awed silence, so

intense that a cough, the clearing of a throat, the dropping of a

hymn-book into a rack, echoed hollowly. Slight movements took on

augmented significance. Thoughts boomed out like words, and looks had

all the force of blows.

The polity of All People's was ultra-congregational. The proceedings had

the form of order, but were primitive and practical; yet every step,

voice, motion, detail, took on an exaggerated sense of the ominous, as

if a man's body were on trial instead of merely his soul.

Nor was Elder Burbeck at all approving of Hampstead's manner to-night.

The minister had shown again his utter incapacity to appreciate a

situation. He was too cool, too unmoved. He had taken a full minute to

stand there posing in pretended serenity while he looked the

congregation over. From Burbeck's point of view, this manoeuvre was

dangerous tactics. There was always some indefinable power in that

deep-searching look of Hampstead's. If the man should stand up there

and look at these people for ten minutes longer, he might have them all

over there palavering about him. He was looking in the gallery now.

Well, let him look there as long as he liked. The gallery couldn't

vote. Burbeck's own eye wandered into the gallery. On the other side

from him, just where the horseshoe curve began to draw in toward the

choir loft, sat his son, Rollie.

"Rollie should not be up there," the Elder instructed, turning to an

usher. "Go and tell him to come down."

"He says he is with a lady who is not a member," reported the usher on

returning.

"Huh?" ejaculated Burbeck, turning a surprised gaze upon the figure of a

woman heavily veiled who sat beside his son.

That woman! What sacrilege had impelled his son to bring her here? Had

she not wrought ruin enough already? Must she gloat over the shame she

had brought upon this congregation and upon the church of the living

God? And must his son be the means of her coming? What was that boy

thinking of, anyway?

And yet, since Rollie had grown into so fine a figure of a man, his

father had come to regard his son and what he chose to do with an

indulgence he granted to no one else. He wished the boy would come to

church more; he wished he would give more attention to those things to

which his father had devoted his life; and yet he could make allowance

for him. The young man's environment, his social gifts, his business

prospects, all inclined him to another set of associations. Besides,

the boy's own character seemed so fine and strong, the sentiments of his

heart so truly noble, that the father's iron judgment softened even in

the matter of an indiscretion so flagrant as this. He reflected too

that for business reasons it was doubtless just as well if Rollie were

brought into no prominence in this unpleasant affair. In fact, Elder

Burbeck would have been as well satisfied if his son had stayed away

altogether.

"It is time to call the meeting to order," suggested Elder Brooks, a

pale, nervous man whose eyes were continually consulting the typewritten

sheet which he held in his hand.

"Yes, Brother Brooks," agreed Elder Burbeck, advancing to the table

below and in front of the pulpit. He was almost directly in front of

where Doctor Hampstead sat in his pew.

John noticed that the Elder looked worried and over-anxious. His pouchy

cheeks sagged; there were huge wattles of red skin beneath his chin, and

his whole countenance had a more than usually apoplectic look.

"Brother Anderson will lead in prayer," announced the Elder in unctuous

tones. "Let us stand, please!"

The congregation stood. But Brother Anderson's leadership in prayer

could not be deemed very successful. He led as if he himself were lost.

His prayer appeared to partake of the nature of an apology to God for

what the petitioner hoped was about to be done.

During the length of these whining orisons, the congregation grew

impatient. The gallery in spots sat down. The effect of the prayer was

in total no more than a dismal thickening of the gloom of tragedy that

hung lower and lower over the meeting. Yet once the prayer was ended,

Elder Burbeck baldly declared the object of the meeting.

His manner was strained, his voice was harsh and halting, but he began

stubbornly and plodded forward doggedly, gradually laboring himself into

the hectic fervor of his assumed position as the instrument of God to

purge All People's of its pastor.

Yet it was in keeping with the tenseness of the situation that as the

emotions of the vehement apostle of the _status quo_ reached their

height, his words became rather less florid, and he concluded in

sentences of sycophantic calm and tones of solicitous consideration for

the feelings of the piece of riff-raff he was about to brush aside with

a sweep of his fiery fan.

"There is before us," he assured his audience finally, "no question of

the pastor's guilt or innocence of the charges made. The question is

one of expediency; as to what is best to do for the good name and the

future usefulness of All People's. The Board of Elders, after serious

and prayerful consideration," Brother Burbeck's voice whined a little as

he said this, "has felt that it was best for the pastor and best for the

interest of the church to ask him to resign quietly and immediately.

That request has been emphatically declined. It has become our duty,

painful as it is," the Elder sighed and twitched his red neck

regretfully in his white collar, "to present to the congregation a

resolution covering the situation. That resolution the clerk of the

church will now read."

But instead of looking at the clerk, the chairman looked at Elder

Brooks.

Those typewritten lines, the mere holding of which had given Elder

Brooks that sense of importance which it was necessary for him to feel

in order to be able to act decisively in a matter like this which went

gravely against some of the instincts of his soft nature, were, by him

now, with a final and supreme sense of this importance, passed to the

clerk of the church, a fat, ageless, colorless looking man who read

stolidly that:

Whereas, the pastor of this congregation, John Hampstead, has been held

to answer to the Superior Court of this County upon a charge of burglary

and has been otherwise involved in public scandal in such manner that he

appears either unable or unwilling to establish his innocence; and

Whereas, it is the judgment of this Board that such a situation is one

highly detrimental to the causes for which this church exists, and one

calculated to bring reproach upon the church and the sacred cause of

Christ;

Therefore, be it resolved that the pastoral relation existing between

All People's Church and the said John Hampstead be, and now is,

immediately dissolved.

"This, brethren," announced Elder Burbeck, with an air of pain that was

no doubt real, and a fresh summoning of divine resolution to his aid,

"is the recommendation of your official Board. What is your pleasure

concerning it?"

"I move its adoption," quavered Elder Brooks.

"I second the motion," Brother Anderson suggested faintly.

"Are you ready for the question?" hinted the ruling Elder.

But a man stood up somewhere over behind Hampstead. "I should like to

ask, Brother Burbeck," he inquired, "if that was the unanimous

resolution of the Board."

"It was not unanimous," replied the Elder, slightly nettled, "as you

know, Brother Hinton. It is a majority resolution. The question is now

upon its adoption."

Elder Burbeck swept a suggestive eye over his carefully organized

majority, and this time his hint was taken. Calls of "question" arose.

But Hinton remained uncompromisingly upon his feet. He was a tall man

and pale, with a high, bone-like brow, a long spiked chin, and gray

moustaches that drooped placidly over a balanced mouth.

"I understand that the chair will not attempt to railroad this

resolution," he ventured with mild sarcasm.

Elder Burbeck's habitual flush heightened as, after a premonitory rumble

in his throat and an enormous effort at self-control, he replied

emphatically: "Brother Hinton, the resolution will not be railroaded;"

and then added warningly: "To avoid stirring up strife, however, I hope

we may vote upon it with as little discussion as possible."

"Yes," admitted Brother Hinton dryly, but still standing his ground. "I

think it is perfectly understood that debate where its outcome is

pre-determined, is useless. Yet without having consulted the pastor of

this church as to my course, I voice the sentiment of many around me in

urging him to stand up here as its pastor, as he has a right to do, and

as the congregation has a right to ask him to do, and tell us what he

thinks should be our course in the premises."

Brother Hinton's was a well balanced mind, and it seemed for a moment

that his own manner might inject some coolness into the situation.

Indeed, the good Elder Burbeck trembled lest it might, for the fires of

purification being up, he wished them to burn, undampened.

Certainly for John Hampstead to stand up there and tell that

congregation what to do was the last thing the Elder wanted. Besides,

he resented some of Brother Hinton's imputations as disagreeable.

The chairman answered curtly:

"If the pastor did not respect the eldership sufficiently to advise it,

I think it can hardly be expected of him to advise the congregation; or

that the congregation would take his advice if he gave it."

The face of Hampstead whitened, and his muscles strained in his body.

This was really a mean speech of Elder Burbeck, yet he did not wish to

be mean. He meant only to be just--to All People's church. His zeal on

the one hand, his prejudgment upon the other, had led him to consider no

procedure as proper that did not look immediately to the hurling down of

the usurper.

"The pastor is not at issue," he concluded with heat almost unholy. "It

is the good name of All People's that is at issue."

The face of Hampstead whitened a little more.

"But," persisted Brother Hinton; "let our pastor make his answer to the

charges, that we may determine for ourselves what is the issue."

Enough had been said. John Hampstead stood tall and statue-like in the

aisle, with the manner of a man about to speak the very soul out of

himself, if need be. Before this manner, Elder Burbeck recoiled a

little, as he knew he must, if this man asserted himself. For one

despairing moment the good man felt that the cause of righteousness was

lost. But something in the manner of the minister himself reassured the

Elder. The man's soul went back a little from his eyes,--receded, as it

were, like a tide, while he turned toward the congregation and in

kindly, patient tones began:

"I cannot speak to charges, Brother Hinton! None are presented against

me. It was for this reason that I refused to appear before the

eldership. This resolution is not a charge. It is an assault. There

is no proposal on the part of this Board to find out if I am guilty of

anything. They propose a course which assumes my guilt to be of no

importance. I tell you that it is of all importance.

"Perhaps, brethren, I have been too reticent. Perhaps the peculiar

circumstances out of which this congregation has grown during the five

years of my ministry have made it difficult for all of us to see aright

or to act aright in this trying situation. I stand before you to some

extent a victim of misplaced confidence in you. I was surprised that

the newspapers should inflame public opinion against me. I was

surprised that a Court of Justice should hold me to answer for this

improbable crime. Yet, during all these, to me, cataclysmic, happenings

of the past week, I have looked to the loyalty of this church with an

assurance that never wavered; an assurance that in the light of what is

happening to-night seems more tragic than anything else. I never had a

thought that you would not stand by me, at least until I was found to be

guilty."

A note of pathos had crept into the minister's voice. The gallery

listened intent and breathless. Elder Burbeck felt an irritation in his

throat.

But the minister was continuing:

"Indulging this faith in you, entirely occupied with the many perplexing

circumstances of this lamentable affair, I am made now to feel that I

neglected you too long.

"I perceive now that your minds, too, were inflamed with suspicion; that

well-meaning but mistaken zealots among you have felt called upon to

take advantage of the situation to purge the church of my presence.

"Once I saw this movement under way, I felt too hurt to oppose it. It

seems to me that it has been done cunningly and calculatingly. No

charges have been presented against me; therefore I cannot defend

myself; and I will not defend myself. I am only analyzing the situation

for you, that what you do may be with open eyes. It is urged that I am

not on trial; therefore as a popular tribunal, you cannot go into the

details and ascertain the truth for yourselves.

"A hasty decision is demanded; therefore there is no time for the

situation to clear and for calm counsel to prevail. Bear in mind that

you are called upon to take action quickly, not for my sake as a

minister; not for your sake as individuals; but because the good name of

this church is alleged to be suffering. Is it not in reality because

the vanity of some of the members of this church is suffering?

"If that is so, it is not a reason, my brethren, for hasty action

against any man. Surely it is not a reason for hasty action against me.

I ask those of you who can remember, to go back, to recall the

circumstances under which I became your pastor. You were humble enough

then. There was small thought of the good name of this congregation

when I sat in the park out there and saw this man nailing a plank across

the door. I did not question his good intentions then. I do not

question them now. But he is proposing to do the same thing in effect

that he did then; to nail God out of His house.

"Oh, not because I am nailed out. You may cast me out, and this church

will go on. But if you cast out any brother, even the humblest,

wrongfully or for self-righteous reasons, you depart from the spirit of

Christ. You should be helping that man instead of hurting him. How much

less would you cast out your pastor for the same reason."

"Brother Hampstead!" It was the voice of Elder Burbeck, grating harshly

by the forced element of self-restraint in his tones. "You are

misapprehending the issue. There is no proposal to cast you out of the

congregation. The proposal is merely that you retire from the position

of eminence which you occupy, exactly as I might be asked to retire if

my own name had been smirched."

"There you are!" ejaculated Hampstead. "'Had been smirched.' Your

chairman's phraseology shows that he assumes that my name has been

smirched. I deny it. I indignantly reject the specious argument that

the action of this church to-night does not amount to a trial. Before

the eyes of the world you are finding me guilty. You place upon me a

stigma as a minister that will follow wherever I go, the inference of

which is unescapable. From the hour when I became the minister of this

congregation until now, I have gone about as a servant of the One

Master, according to my judgment and my capacity. The point of view of

the authors of this resolution seems to be that I have been the servant

of this congregation; that I may be hired or discharged, that I am

theirs, that I have been working for them. That was a mistake! It is a

mistake. I know you have paid me a salary, but I have never felt that

it conferred upon me any obligation to you. I thought you gave the money

to God, and that he gave it to me, and that with it I was to serve Him

and not you. That service was rendered in all good conscience to this

hour. Are you now presuming to oust me because I can no longer serve

God? Or because you are unwilling for me longer to serve you?

"Your Board has asked me to resign. To resign would be a confession of

guilt. I do not feel guilty. I am not guilty. My conscience is clear.

Personally, I was never so satisfied that I was doing right as now.

"Sometimes I must have done the wrong thing. Looking back, it seems to

me now that sometimes when you approved most heartily, when the public

ovations were the loudest, the thing achieved was either of doubtful

worth or very transitory. The present case touches fundamental issues.

It has to do with one of the most sacred duties of the minister.

"The resolution to which I am entitled from this congregation is a

resolution of absolute confidence. There is but one other resolution

that could adequately express the situation, and that is the one which

is proposed by the Board. If you cannot pass the resolution of

confidence, I think that you should pass the one that has been proposed.

That is the advice which I have to offer. That is the answer which I

make to this unjust, this unchristian assault upon your pastor in the

moment when, tried as he has never been tried before, he needs your

loyalty and confidence more than he can ever need it again."

Hampstead sat down. He had spoken with far more feeling than he had

intended, but he had exhibited much less than he experienced.

Yet the total effect of his words was less happy than his friends had

hoped. Instead of appealing to his auditors, he appeared to arraign

them. Elder Burbeck was greatly relieved. He saw that this arraignment

had antagonized and solidified his own cohorts.

But the tall man with the lofty brow was on his feet again.

"I wish to move," said Brother Hinton, "a resolution such as Doctor

Hampstead has suggested; a resolution of sympathy and absolute

confidence, and I now do move that this church put itself upon record as

sympathizing fully with our pastor in his unpleasant position, and

assuring him of our confidence in the unswerving integrity of his

character and of our prayers that he may be true to his duty as he sees

it. I offer that as a substitute for the resolution before the house."

The resolution was seconded. There was an interval of silence, a

feeling that the crucial moment had been reached. Question was called.

The substitute was put.

"All in favor of this resolution which you have heard made and with the

formal reading of which we will dispense, please stand," proclaimed

Elder Burbeck.

There was an uncertain movement. By ones and twos, and then in groups

the persons sitting on the Hampstead side of the church rose to their

feet, until with few exceptions all were standing.

"The clerk will count."

There was an awkward silence.

"One hundred and sixty-three," the colorless man announced presently.

"All opposed, same sign." Burbeck's adherents arose _en masse_ at the

motion of the Elder's arm, which was as involuntary as it was

injudicial.

The clerk did not count. It was unnecessary. "The motion is lost," he

said to the presiding officer.

"The resolution is lost," announced Elder Burbeck loudly, in tones that

quickened with eagerness. "The question now recurs upon the original

resolution."

Erect, poised, feeling a sense of elation that he was now to let loose

the wrath of God upon a recreant shepherd of the flock, the Elder stood

for a moment with his eyes sweeping over the whole congregation, and

taking in every detail of the picture; the disheartened, defeated group

behind Hampstead, the flushed, determined face of the minister, the

defiant blaze in the eyes of the rosy-faced young person by his

side,--who was this strange woman, anyway?--and then his own

well-marshalled loyal forces, who to-night played the part of the

avenging hosts of Jehovah!

Up even into the gallery the Elder's eyes wandered with satisfaction.

These galleries should see that All People's would not suffer itself to

be put to shame before the world. Something centered his eye for a

moment upon Rollie. His son was gazing intently, leaning forward with a

hand reached out until it rested on the balcony rail. Then the Elder's

eye returned to the lower floor and to the mission now about to be

accomplished.

"Are you ready for the question?" he inquired, with forced deliberation,

enjoying the suspense before its inevitable outcome of satisfied

justice.

"Question! Question!" came the insistent calls.

But now there was something like a movement in the gallery. The old

Elder's eye, noting everything, noted that; looking up, he saw that

Rollie's seat was empty; but higher up the gallery aisle the young man

was visible, making his way quickly toward the stairs. That was right,

he was coming down to vote; but he would be too late.

"All in favor of the resolution severing the pastoral relation between

All People's Church and John Hampstead will signify by standing."

The Elder rolled the words out sonorously. In his mind they stood for

the thunder of divine judgment!

The solid phalanxes upon his left arose as one man and stood while their

impressive numbers were this time carefully counted by the clerk. The

tally took some time.

"Opposed, the same sign!" The Elder barked out the words like a

challenge. Again the straggling group behind Hampstead arose. The

minister himself stood up. As a member of the congregation, he had a

right to vote, and he would protest to the last this injustice to him,

this slander of All People's upon itself.

Mrs. Burbeck could not stand, but raised her hand, so thin and

shell-like that it trembled while she held the white palm up to view.

Elder Burbeck saw this and noted with a slight additional sense of shock

that Rollie was now beside his mother and standing also to be counted

with the Hampstead adherents.

"The resolution is carried," said the clerk to the Elder.

"The resolution--" echoed Burbeck, his voice beginning to gather

enormous volume. But when he had got this far, his utterance was

arrested by the sudden action of his son, who remained standing in the

aisle, with one hand grasping his mother's, and the other outstretched

in some sort of appeal to him.

"Father!" the boy whispered hoarsely; "don't announce that vote! Don't

announce it!"

This startling interruption appeared to freeze the whole scene fast.

The throaty, excited tones of the young man floated to the far corners

of the auditorium, and again the sense of some impending terror forced

itself deeper into the crowd-consciousness.

"Don't announce it? What do you mean?" ejaculated the father in an

irritated and widely audible whisper.

The suddenness of this outbreak and the astounding fact that it should

come from his own flesh, had thrown the Elder completely off his stride.

"Because," the young man faltered, his face white, his eyes wild and

staring, "because it's wrong!"

The huge dominating figure of a man stood for a moment nonplussed,

wondering what hysteria could have overtaken his son; but annoyance and

stubborn determination to proceed quickly manifested themselves upon his

face.

"Don't, father!" pleaded the young man, advancing down the aisle,

"Don't! I've got something I must say!"

By this time, Hampstead, quickly apprehensive, had stepped out from his

pew and was seeking to grasp Rollie's arm; but the excited young man

avoided him, and standing with one hand still appealing toward his

father, and with the other pointing backward toward the minister, he

announced with a sudden access of vocal force: "That man is innocent."

[Illustration: "That man is innocent."]

The words had a triumphant ring in them that echoed through the

auditorium.

"Innocent?"

The tone of the senior Burbeck was scornful in the extreme. Increasing

anger at being thus interfered with, especially by Rollie had turned the

Elder's face almost purple. "Young man," he commanded harshly, "you

stand aside and let this church declare its will."

"I will not stand aside," protested the son. "I will not let you, my

father, do this great wrong. He forbade me to speak; but I will speak.

Yes, no matter what happens, I must speak."

The young man turned a frightened glance upon his mother. Mrs. Burbeck

was gazing intently at her son, a look of shock giving way to one of

comprehension and then a pitiful half-smile of encouragement, as if she

urged him to go on and do his duty, whatever that involved.

"That man," Rollie began afresh, his neck thrust forward desperately,

while he pointed to the minister, who had stepped back once more as

though he felt the purposes of God in operation and no longer dared to

interfere; "that man is innocent. I am the thief. I stole the

diamonds. I did it to get the money to cover a defalcation at the bank.

Fearful of the consequences, I turned to him in my distress. He got the

money to restore what I had stolen. I put the diamonds in his box for

an hour, and by a mistake he went off with the key. That explains all.

When I returned from the cruise on the Bay and learned what had

happened, I was paralyzed with fear. At first I did not even have the

manhood to go and tell him how the diamonds got into his box. When I

did, he made me keep the silence for fear the blow would kill my mother.

It seemed to me that this was not a sufficient reason. But I was weak;

I was a coward. Yet the spectacle of seeing this man stand here day

after day while his reputation was torn to pieces, unwavering and

unyielding whether for the sake of my mother or such a worthless wretch

as I am, or for the sake of his priestly vow, made me stronger and

stronger. Yet I was not strong enough to speak. Not until to-night.

Not until I saw my mother's hand tremble when she held it up to vote for

him. I only came down here to stand beside her. But one touch of hers

compelled me to speak. I am prepared to assume my guilt before this

church and before the world. I was a defaulter, and John Hampstead

saved me. I was a thief, and he saved me. I was a coward, and he made

me brave enough at least for this. I tell you, the man is innocent,

absolutely innocent. He is so good that you should fall down and

worship him."

Rollie's confession in detail was addressed to the congregation as a

whole, and he finished with his arms extended and chest thrown forward

like a man who had bared his soul.

After standing for a moment motionless, his eyes turned to his mother,

and with a low cry he dashed to where Hampstead was bending over her.

She lay chalk-white and motionless, one hand in her lap, the other

swinging pendant, the hand that had just been raised to vote. The eyes

were closed; the lips half parted; the expression of her face, if

expression it might be termed, one of utter exhaustion of vital forces.

For a moment the young man stood transfixed by the spectacle of what he

had done. How shadow thin she looked! This was not the figure of a

woman, but some exquisite pattern of the spiritual draped limply in this

chair.

And yet, as if affected by his appealing gaze, the features moved, some

of the looseness departed from the corners of the mouth, the eye-lashes

fluttered and a delicate tint showed upon the cheek, disappeared, came

again, and went away again; but with each appearance lingered longer.

The lips moved too as if a breath were passing through them; almost

indistinguishably and yet surely, the bosom of her dress stirred,

collapsed, and stirred again. The young man had rather unconsciously

seized both wilted hands, forcing the minister somewhat away in order to

do so. It was his mother. He had struck her defenseless head this

blow. Unmindful of the sudden awe of silence about him, followed by

murmurings, ejaculations, and then a universal stir of feet, the blank

looks, the questionings, the staring wonder with which neighbor looked

to neighbor, the young man watched intently that stirring of the mother

breast until it became regular and rhythmical.

The lips were moving now again; but this time as if in the formation of

words. Rollie bent low, until his ear was close.

"Let me think, let me think," the lips murmured wearily. "My son--was a

defaulter and a thief--John Hampstead knew. John Hampstead showed him

the better way." She turned her head weakly and eased her body in the

chair, as if to make even this slight effort at conversation less

laborious, and then began to speak once more:

"But he was not strong enough to walk that better way, so John Hampstead

took the burden upon his own shoulders and carried it until my boy was

strong enough to bear it for himself."

Sufficient strength had returned for one of her hands to exert a

pressure on the hand that held it.

"Yes, mother," Rollie breathed fervently into her ear.

"But now," and the voice gained more volume, "but now he is strong

enough. He has done a brave and noble thing at last. I forget my shame

in pride and gratitude to God for my son that was lost and is alive

again--forever more."

The last tone flowed out upon the current of a long, wavering sigh,

which seemed to take the final breath from her body.

"Yes, mother!" the young man urged anxiously, putting an instinctive

pressure upon the hands he held, as if to call the spirit back into her

again. There was an instant in which he felt that it was gone. She had

left him. But the next instant he felt it coming back again like a tide

and stronger, much stronger, so that there was real color in her cheeks,

and then the eyes opened and looked at him with a clear and steady

light, with the glow of love and admiration in them.

"Thank God!" murmured the voice of Hampstead hoarsely. "She is back.

She will stay."

"Yes," Mrs. Burbeck affirmed, faintly but valiantly, turning from the

face of her son to that of the minister with a look of inexpressible

gratitude and devotion. "Yes, I am back," she smiled reassuringly, "and

to stay. I never had so much reason--so much to live for as now."

The enactment of this scene at the chair, so intense and so significant,

could have consumed no more than two minutes of time. The congregation,

keenly alive to the effect the disclosure must have upon the life of the

mother, was in a state to witness with the most perfect understanding

every detail of the action about the invalid's chair. While the issue

was in doubt, the audience remained in an agony of suspense and

apprehension.

With the sudden look of relief upon the face of the minister, followed

presently by a luminous smile of pure joy while his shoulders

straightened to indicate the rolling off of the burden of his fears, the

suspense for the congregation was completely ended. Reactions began

immediately to occur.

Far up in the gallery a woman laughed, an excited, hysterical, brainless

laugh, and every eye darted upon her in reproach. Then down in front

somewhere near the first line of the Burbeck adherents, a man began to

sob, hoarsely and with a wailing note, as if in utter despair. Again

every eye swung from the woman who had laughed to the man who was

crying. As they fell on him, he stood up. It was Elder Brooks, the man

who had written the resolution declaring the pastoral relation severed.

With streaming eyes he was hurrying toward Hampstead. But now other

women were laughing hysterically, other men were sobbing. Everywhere

was exclamation, movement, and a sudden impulse toward the minister.

The people in the gallery came down, crowding dangerously, to the rail.

On the main floor little rivulets of excited human beings trickled out

from the pews and streamed down the aisles. The first to reach Hampstead

was a woman. She caught his hand and kissed it. Elder Brooks came

next. He flung an arm about the minister's neck, but instead of looking

at him or addressing him, covered his face in shame.

But it was no longer possible to describe what any one individual was

doing. The entire audience had become a sea which at first rolled

toward Hampstead and then swirled and tossed its individual waves

laughing, cheering or applauding frothily. In mutual congratulation men

shook each other's hands and some appeared even to shake their own

hands. Women kissed or flung their arms about one another. Two thirds

of the main floor was devoid entirely of people. The other third was a

struggling eddy in which the tall form of the ex-pastor,--for they had

just voted him out of the pulpit,--stood receiving every one who reached

him with a sad kind of graciousness.

Songs broke out. For a time the people in the gallery were singing:

"Blessed be the tie that binds." Those below sobbed through "My faith

looks up to Thee", and presently all were singing "Nearer my God to

Thee, nearer to Thee." This continued until the gathering seemed to

sing itself somewhat out of its hysteria; and then, weaving to and fro,

the tide began to ebb back up the aisles and into the pews again.

At first the people thought they had done this of their own accord, but

later it appeared that it was Hampstead who was making them do it. He

was a leader. In the temporary chaos, his will alone retained its

poise, and it was the suggestion in the glance of his eye and finally in

the gestures of his hands that sent them back to their seats.

When the singing stopped, and the audience sat somewhat composed and

considering what should happen next, the minister remained master of the

situation.

To protect himself somewhat from the surging waves of humanity,

Hampstead had stepped upon the platform. He stood now with one hand

resting easily upon the back of the chair beside the communion table.

The chair was not empty, for it contained the huge, collapsed bulk of

the Elder, the upper half of whose body had sunk sideways upon the end

of the table, with his huge red face fenced off from view by one arm, as

if to shroud the shame of his features. He was inert and still. The

fragile human orchid in the chair had not been more motionless than he.

The tip of an ear, one bald knob of his head, were all that showed to

those in front; and the other arm was extended across the table, the

fingers overhanging the edge of it.

The spectacle of the man lying crushed and broken upon the very table

from which so often he had administered the communion, cast a deepening

spell over all. But it also forced on all a thought of sympathy for

this rashly misguided man, who as a spiritual leader of this church had

shown himself so utterly lacking in spiritual discernment. This was

quite in keeping with John Hampstead's mood.

"Our very first emotion," the minister began, "must be one of sympathy

for this well-meaning brother of ours who has been the unfortunate

victim of a series of mistakes in which his has been by no means the

greatest. While he sits before us overcome with humiliation and remorse,

Elder Burbeck will pardon me if I speak for a moment as if he were not

here. I wish to urge upon you all that no one--least of all

myself--should reproach him for the thing which he has done. I have

never doubted that he was acting in all good conscience. The succession

of events, once it had begun to march, has been so remarkable that now,

looking back, we must each and all of us feel how puny are men and women

to resist the winds of circumstance which blow upon them.

"To me, granting the beginning of this strange series of events for

which I am at least in part to blame, it seems now that all the rest has

been inevitable. I think we should reproach no one. Certainly I shall

not. Instead, I am thinking that it is a time for great rejoicing.

That mother who has so many times shown us the better way, has shown it

to-night. Looking up to her son whose act of moral courage, witnessing

to the new character that he has been building, has made possible the

happy climax of this tragic hour--looking up to him she has said: 'I

never had so much to live for as now.' That should be the feeling of

each one of us.

"The events of to-night must have been graven deeply into all our

hearts. None of us can ever be quite the same. Each must start afresh,

with our lives enriched by the lesson and by the experiences of this

hour.

"It has brought to me the keenest suffering, the bitterest

disappointment, that I have ever known. It has brought to me also a

deepening faith in the marvelous power of God to overrule the most

untoward incidents to His glory. It has brought to me also the greatest

gift that any man can have upon the side of his earthly relations,--a

joy so great, so supreme, so ineffable that I cannot speak farther than

to say to you that it is mine to-night; and that you look into my eyes

at the happiest moment I have ever known."

There was a movement in the gallery. A tall woman, heavily veiled, with

an air of unmistakable distinction about her, arose and mounted the

aisle step by step to the stairway leading downward.

Desiring with all the violent impetuosity of her nature to break out

with the truth that would vindicate the man she loved so hopelessly and

had involved so terribly, Marien had nevertheless been true to her vow

of silence. But she had brought Rollie Burbeck to this meeting, and she

had kept him there. At the critical moment she had sent him down to

stand beside his mother, until the young man's clay-like soul at last

had fluxed and fused into the moulding of a man. Having seen the

mischief she had wrought undone, so far as anything done ever is undone,

she was leaving now, when the minister had begun to speak of what she

could not bear to hear.

Hampstead's gaze watched the receding figure, and a poignant regret for

her smote in upon him in the midst of all his joy.

Desperately, with that enormous resolution of which she was capable,

Marien Dounay was stepping undemonstratively out of his life. But as

she went, he knew that the verdict pronounced upon him by the court was

one now pronounced upon her. All through life she would be held to

answer for the love she had slain for the sake of her ambition.

Of those who followed the eye of the minister as it marked the departure

of the woman from the gallery, some, of course, recognized her, and for

a moment they may have been puzzled over the mystery of the part she had

played in that moving drama, the last act of which was now drawing to

its end before them; but the minister was speaking again:

"It seems to me best for us all," he was saying, "to disperse quietly,

to go each to his or her own home, to our own families, into the deeper

recesses of our own hearts, to ponder that through which we have passed

and plan for each the future duty.

"Upon one point I am inclined to break into homily. The great lesson

which I myself have learned can be best expressed in the verdict of the

court at my preliminary hearing: 'Held to Answer.' It seems to me there

is a great philosophy of life in that. In the crowding events of the

week past, I have been 'Held to Answer' for many mistakes of mine. Some

of you must find yourselves held to answer now for the manner in which

you have borne yourselves. Our young brother, Rollie Burbeck, for whom

we feel so deeply and whose courage to-night we have so greatly admired,

will be held to answer to-morrow before his associates and the world for

his past mistakes and for his proposals for the future. But we shall be

held to answer also for our blessings and our opportunities. A great

joy has come to me. The woman I have loved devotedly, but perhaps

undeservingly, for years, has come thundering half way across the

continent to stand beside me here to-night. She brings me great

happiness, an increasing opportunity to do good. For that also I shall

be held to answer, since joys are not given to us for selfish use, but

that we may enlarge and give them back again.

"And now, though I am no longer your pastor, you will permit me, I am

sure, to lift my hand above you for this last time and invoke the

benediction of God which is eternal upon the life of every man and woman

here to-night."

"But," faltered Elder Brooks, starting up, his voice trembling, "that

was our great mistake, our great sin. You are to be our pastor again!"

The minister shook his head slowly and decisively. The Elder stared in

dumb, helpless amazement, while a murmur of dissent rose from the

congregation, but quieted before the upraised hand of the minister.

"It seems to me," said Hampstead, speaking in tones of deep conviction

and yet with humility, "that God has declared the pulpit of All People's

vacant; that both you and I are to be held to answer for our mutual

failure by a stern decree of separation. For there is another lesson

which has been graven deeply in my life. It is this: No man can go

back. No life ever flows up stream. The tomb of yesterday is sealed.

The decision of this congregation is irrevocable. Less than a quarter

of an hour has passed; but you are not the same, and I am not the same."

In the minister's solemn utterance, the message of the inevitable

consequence of what had happened was carried into every consciousness.

There was no longer any protest. The congregation bowed, mutely

submissive, while John Hampstead pronounced the benediction of St. Jude:

"Now unto him that is able to guard you from stumbling, and to set you

before the presence of his glory without blemish in exceeding joy, to

the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory,

majesty, dominion and power before all time, and now, and forever more.

Amen."

The meeting was over. But the audience sat uncertainly in the pews,

with expectant glances at Elder Burbeck. It seemed as if he should rouse

and say something. John, in recognition of the naturalness of this

impulse, turned and laid his hand upon the shoulder of the man.

"My brother," he began, and applied a gentle pressure. But something in

the unyielding bulk of the man made him stop with a puzzled look, after

which he turned and glanced toward Mrs. Burbeck. Already Rollie was

pushing her chair forward, her face expressing both anxiety and love.

She had been eager to go to her husband before, but consideration for

his own pride, which would resent a demonstration, had withheld her.

She touched first the outstretched drooping finger.

"Hiram!" she breathed softly, coaxingly, "Hiram!"

Receiving no response, Mrs. Burbeck drew the obscuring hand gently from

before the face. Her own features were a study. It was curious of

Hiram to act this way. He was a man of stern purpose. Having been

overwhelmingly shamed by his error, it would have been like him to stand

bravely and confess his wrong. But his parted lips had no purpose in

their form at all. The redness of his skin had changed to a purple.

She laid her fingers on his cheek and held them there, for a moment,

curiously and apprehensively. Then a startled expression crossed her

face, and a little exclamation broke from her lips. Instead of leaning

forward, she drew back and lifted her eyes helplessly to the minister.

Hampstead met her questioning, pitiful glance with a sad shake of the

head and affirmation in his own tear-filling eyes. He had sensed the

solemn truth from the moment of that first touch upon the huge,

unresponsive shoulder.

For an appreciable interval the face of the woman was white and set and

unbelieving, and then she folded her hands and bowed her head in mute

acknowledgment of the widowhood which had come upon her.

With the audience aghast and breathless in sympathetic understanding,

Hampstead looked down upon the silent figures where they posed like a

sculptured group, the upper bulk of the man unmoving upon the table, the

woman unmoving in the chair, and behind the chair, the son, also bowed

and motionless.

Hiram Burbeck was dead. He, too, had been held to answer, but before

the highest court,--for his harsh legalism, for his unsympathetic heart,

for his blind leadership of the blind.

How strange were the issues of life! This leaflike shadow of a woman,

her mortal existence hanging by a thread, had withstood the shock for

which the minister had feared and risen strong above it. She still had

strength to bear and strength to give. But the proud, stern father had

crumpled and died.

Again there was the sound of sobbing in the church; but the intimates of

Mrs. Burbeck quickly gathered round and screened the group of mourners

from the eyes of the people who filed quietly out of the building. For

a time the steady tramp of feet upon the gallery stairs, with the snort

and cough of motor-cars outside, resounded harshly, and then the church

was emptied. Rollie had taken his mother away. Rose, Dick, and Tayna

were gone. The huge chair by the end of the communion table was emptied

of its burden. That, too, was gone. All the wreckage, all the past,

was gone.

The old sexton stood sadly by the vestibule door, his hand upon the

light switch, waiting the pleasure of his pastor for the last time.

Absently, John Hampstead climbed the pulpit stairs and stood leaning on

the pulpit itself, surveying in farewell the empty pews and the empty,

groined arches. They had stood for something that he had tried to do

and failed; but he would try again more humbly, more in the fear of God,

more in the spirit of one who had turned failure into victory.

Standing thus, looking thus, reflecting thus, John heard a soft step

upon the pulpit stair. It was Bessie, who had lingered in appreciative

silence, the faithful, indulgent companion of her lover's mood. As she

approached, the rapt man swung out his arm to enfold her, and they stood

together, both leaning upon the pulpit.

"To-night one ministry has ended," John said presently; "to-morrow

another shall begin."

"And it will be a better ministry," breathed Bessie softly, "because

there are two of us."

"_And they twain shall become one flesh!_"