After a pause, Mr Turnbull spoke.
"Mr Bruce, we're waiting for you," he said. "Do not be afraid. You shall have justice."
A dead silence followed the appeal. Presently some of those furthest back�-they were women in hooded cloaks and mutches-�spoke in scarce audible voices.
"He's no here, sir. We canna see him," they said.
The minister could not distinguish their words.
"No here!" cried Thomas, who, deaf as he was, had heard them. "He was here a minute ago! His conscience has spoken at last. He's fa'en doon, like Ananias, i' the seat."
Richard snatched a candle out of the candelabrum, and went to look. Others followed similarly provided. They searched the pew where he had been sitting, and the neighbouring pews, and the whole chapel, but he was nowhere to be found.
"That wad hae been him, whan I heard the door bang," they said to each other at length.
And so it was. For perceiving how he had committed himself, he had slipped down in the pew, crawled on all fours to the door, and got out of the place unsuspected.
A formal sentence of expulsion was passed upon him by a show of hands, and the word Expelled was written against his name in the list of church-members.