'I don't know who you are, sir, but you are doing a very dangerous thing in causing these people to behave like this.'
'Suffer Me first to do as they ask.'
He stretched out His hand and touched those that were sick, so that they were whole. But when they came to look for Him who had done them this service, behold He was gone. And the lame man had gone with Him.
CHAPTER X
[THE DEPUTATION]
He came, with His disciple to a gate which led into a field, through which there ran a stream. It was high noon. He entered the gate, and sat beside the stream. And the lame man sat near by. The Stranger watched the water as it plashed over the stones on its race to the mill. When presently He sighed, the lame man said:
'I have money; there is a village close handy. Let me go and buy food, and bring it to you here.'
But He answered:
'We shall not want for food. There is one who comes to offer it to us now.'
Even as He spoke a carriage drew up in the road on the other side of the hedge. A lady, standing up in it, looked through a pair of glasses into the field. Bidding the footman open the carriage-door, alighting, she came through the gate to where He sat with His disciple beside the stream. She was a woman of about forty years of age, very richly dressed. As she walked, with her skirts held well away from the grass, she continued to stare through the glasses, which were attached to a long gold handle. Looking from one to the other, her glance rested, on the Stranger.