One thing more the minister took into account. The number of persons who, half in an attitude of aggressive loyalty and half in tearful sympathy had gathered in the tiers behind his own pew was less by half than that massed behind the Burbeck leadership. The issue was not in doubt. It had been decided already,—in the newspapers, in the court room, and in all this busy bell-ringing of the last two days.
And now, having seen as much and reflected as much as has been recorded, Hampstead sat down and slipped a furtive lover's hand along the seat until it found the hand of Bessie, and took it into his with a gentle pressure that was affectionately reciprocated.
But if to the congregation the entry of the minister and the woman of mystery by his side was sensation number one in this evening of sensations, the entry of the Angel of the Chair was sensation number two. Mrs. Burbeck, propelled as usual by Mori, the Japanese, was just appearing at the side door; and this time there was no trundling to the center between two factions. Instead, with Japanese intentness of purpose, and as if he had his instructions beforehand, Mori drove the chair straight across the neutral ground to the end of the Hampstead pew.
The church, seeing this act, grasped instantly its solemn meaning. The house of Burbeck was divided against itself. Mrs. Burbeck had often disapproved of her husband's course in church leadership, but she had never taken sides against him. To-night she did so. The issue was too great, too fundamental, to do otherwise. That it hurt her painfully was evident. Her face had lost its smile. The pallor of her cheeks was more wax-like than ever, and there was a droop in the corners of her mouth that no physical suffering had effected. But the lips were tightly compressed, and the valiant spirit of the woman looked resolutely out of her eyes. Those near and watching the face of her husband saw that this look affected him; saw him start as if he had hardly expected such action, hardly realized what it would be to find her thus opposing him. They even noted that a fleeting expression of doubt, of sudden loss of faith in his own course, came into the eyes of the man.
Nevertheless, although with a sigh at the burdens his faithfulness to the Lord so often compelled him to bear, Elder Burbeck set his spirit sternly upon its task. He was the Nemesis of God. He would not shrink though the flame scorched him, the innocent, while it consumed the guilty.
Yet from the moment that this glance had passed between the husband and the wife, it appeared that a gloom of tragedy settled upon the gathering. Again the congregation sank of itself to awed silence, so intense that a cough, the clearing of a throat, the dropping of a hymn-book into a rack, echoed hollowly. Slight movements took on augmented significance. Thoughts boomed out like words, and looks had all the force of blows.
The polity of All People's was ultra-congregational. The proceedings had the form of order, but were primitive and practical; yet every step, voice, motion, detail, took on an exaggerated sense of the ominous, as if a man's body were on trial instead of merely his soul.
Nor was Elder Burbeck at all approving of Hampstead's manner to-night. The minister had shown again his utter incapacity to appreciate a situation. He was too cool, too unmoved. He had taken a full minute to stand there posing in pretended serenity while he looked the congregation over. From Burbeck's point of view, this manoeuvre was dangerous tactics. There was always some indefinable power in that deep-searching look of Hampstead's. If the man should stand up there and look at these people for ten minutes longer, he might have them all over there palavering about him. He was looking in the gallery now. Well, let him look there as long as he liked. The gallery couldn't vote. Burbeck's own eye wandered into the gallery. On the other side from him, just where the horseshoe curve began to draw in toward the choir loft, sat his son, Rollie.
"Rollie should not be up there," the Elder instructed, turning to an usher. "Go and tell him to come down."
"He says he is with a lady who is not a member," reported the usher on returning.