"The excitement has been too much for him."
"Poor young man, he has been studying too hard, working for this."
They carried him out and took him home, and one of the elders offered a special prayer for his speedy recovery, and that, being recovered, he might bear his new responsibilities with becoming meekness.
When the young minister came to himself, he was lying on the bed in his own room, and Mrs. Hodges, Eliphalet, and a doctor were bending over him.
"He 's coming round all right now," said the medical man. "You won't need me any longer." And he departed.
"How are you now, Fred?" asked Mrs. Hodges.
The young man closed his eyes again and did not answer. He had awakened to a full realisation of his position, and a dull misery lay at his heart. He wished that he could die then and there, for death seemed the only escape from his bondage. He was bound, irrevocably bound.
"Poor child," Mrs. Hodges went on, "it was awful tryin' on his nerves. Joy is worse 'n sorrow, sometimes; an' then he 'd been workin' so hard. I 'd never 'a' believed he could do it, ef Brother Simpson had n't stuck up fur it."
"She knew it, then," thought Fred. "It was all planned."