Harkness did not look much out of the window; he was inspecting Eliza's face: and when she turned to him he gave her a glance that, had she been a weaker woman, would have been translated into many words—question and invective; but her silence dominated him. It was a look also that, had he been a stronger man, he would have kept to himself, for it served no purpose but to betray that there was some undercurrent of antagonism to her in his mind.
"You're very queer to-day, Mr. Harkness," she remarked, and with that she withdrew.
But when the door closed she was not really gone to the young man. He saw her as clearly with his mind as a moment before he had seen her with his eyes, and he pondered now the expression on her face when she looked out of the window. It told him, however, absolutely nothing of the secret he was trying to wring from her.
There was no square in Chellaston, no part of the long street much wider than any other or more convenient as a public lounging place. Here, in front of the hotel, was perhaps the most open spot, and Harkness hoped the old man would make a stand here and preach; but he turned aside and went down a small side street, so Harkness, who had no desire to identify himself too publicly with his strange protégé, was forced to leave to the curiosity of others the observation of his movements.
The curiosity of people in the street also seemed to abate. The more respectable class of people are too proud to show interest in the same way that gaping children show it, and most people in this village belonged to the more respectable class. Those who had come to doors or windows on the street retired from them just as Harkness had done; those out in the street went on their ways, with the exception of two men of the more demonstrative sort, who went and looked down the alley after the stranger, and called out jestingly to some one in it.
Then the old man stopped, and, with his face still upturned, as if blind to everything but pure light, took up his position on one side of the narrow street. He had only gone some forty paces down it. A policeman, coming up in front of the hotel, looked on, listening to the jesters. Then he and they drew a little nearer, the children who had followed stood round, one man appeared at the other end of the alley. On either side the houses were high and the windows few, but high up in the hotel there was a small window that lighted a linen press, and at that small window, with the door of the closet locked on the inside, Eliza stood unseen, and looked and listened.
The voice of the preacher was loud, unnatural also in its rising and falling, the voice of a deaf man who could not hear his own tones. His words were not what any one expected. This was the sermon he preached:
"In a little while He that shall come will not tarry. Many shall say to Him in that day, 'Lord, Lord,' and He shall say, 'Depart from me; I never knew you.'"
His voice, which had become very vehement, suddenly sank, and he was silent.
"Upon my word, that's queer," said one of the men who stood near the policeman.