"Good night, Doctor Hampstead," she replied, seizing that hand impulsively, then flinging it from her again as she turned, without another glance, to the door. It closed behind her softly, considerately almost, but with that same decisive snap of the lock which had shut her in three quarters of an hour before.
Hampstead stood a moment in reflection. She had come and she had gone, leaving behind a great sense of relief, of complexities unraveled, of good accomplished and of further danger averted. Of one thing he felt sure now; he would never go to prison. A way would be found to avoid that. Her vindictive malice had spent itself and been turned to an attempt at co-operation.
But he was still under clouds: one the verdict of Judge Brennan, "Held to Answer"; the other less black, but larger and murkier, the cloud of public condemnation; and for the present he must remain under both. Besides which, there was his church and Elder Burbeck to consider.
And to-morrow was Sunday!
CHAPTER XXXVIII
SUNDAY IN ALL PEOPLE'S
Elder Burbeck did not make good his threat. Hampstead stood again in the pulpit of All People's on Sunday, as his heart had so passionately desired.
But the reality disappointed. The contrast between this day and last Lord's day was pitiful. To be sure, the church was packed; but not to worship. The people—curious and wooden-hearted—had come to be witnesses to a spectacle, to see a man go through the business of a rôle which his character no longer fitted him to enact. The service and the sermon were one long agony. John spoke upon the duty of being true. His words came back upon him like an echo.
As for Elder Burbeck, he had only halted. The minister, from considerations of delicacy which were promptly misconstrued, having remained away from the called meeting of the Official Board on Saturday night, all things in that session had gone to Burbeck's satisfaction. He held in his pocket the resolution of the Board, recommending that the congregation request the resignation of the pastor of All People's. He might have introduced this at the close of the sermon, thus turning the ordinary congregational meeting into a business session; but the Elder was an expert tactician. He decided to devote the entire day to a final estimate of just what inroads the week had made upon the ascendancy of the minister with his people.
However, the manner in which the sermon was received encouraged him to go forward immediately with his plans. As the congregation was upon the last verse of the last hymn, the Elder ascended to the pulpit beside the minister. He did not look at the minister. He did not whisper that he had an announcement to make, and Hampstead did not say at the end of the hymn: "Elder Burbeck has an announcement to make." This was the usual form. But it was not followed. Instead, Burbeck, unannounced, with coarse self-assertion, made the announcement: