Mr. Hammond was standing on the platform, holding his lantern up before a gilt-lettered placard by the church door.
“Hannah,” he gurgled, “this night's been too much for me. My foolishness has struck out of my brains into my eyes. I can't read straight. Look here.”
Hannah clambered up beside her agitated companion, and read from the placard these words:
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
REV. JONATHAN LANGWORTHY, PASTOR
“Good land!” she exclaimed. “Mr. Langworthy! Why, Mr. Langworthy is the minister at Wellmouth Centre, ain't he? I thought he was.”
“He is, but perhaps there's another one.”
“No, there ain't—not another Baptist. And—and this church, what little I can see of it, LOOKS like the Wellmouth Centre Baptist Church, too; I declare it does! . . . Where are you goin'?”
Caleb did not reply, neither did he turn back. Hannah, who did not propose to be left alone there in the dark, was hurrying after him, but he stopped and when she reached his side she found him holding the lantern and peering at an iron gate in a white fence. His face, seen by the lantern light, was a picture of bewildered amazement.
“What is it?” she demanded. “What IS it?”
He did not answer, but merely pointed to the gate.