[JOHN GALBRAITH GOES.]
About half an hour before the time fixed for morning service, Mr. Bunny, his face very grave and set, stepped out of the portico of the manse. He passed through the narrow wicket-gate and entered the church enclosure. The Sunday-school class was over, and a few children were loitering at the main entrance. Others were making their way home in little groups, a feeling of relief in their hearts, and with the consciousness of an unpleasant duty done. Bunny entered the tabernacle by a side door. The clerk was already there, and with him the elder, who had just dismissed his class. They were talking in low tones, and looked up quickly as their ears caught the sound of Bunny's footsteps, which rang with a harsh clang on the stone floor. A whisper had gone forth from the servants' quarters at the manse that something terrible had happened during the night. The attendant who cleaned the church, and who during the service pulled the huge fans which swung in a monotonous manner over the heads of the worshippers, echoed this whisper to the clerk. It is the way news is carried in the East, and it is very rapid. It is impossible to tell how, but the mysterious thing called bazaar gossip travels from ear to ear, from mouth to mouth, telling strange tales which afterward unfold themselves in the press as news, or are discovered in a government resolution. And so the clerk heard a story from the puller of fans, news of the last night, thick with strange scandal, and he was dropping this into the elder's attentive ears. They stopped their conversation as Bunny approached, and somewhat awkwardly wished him good-morning. Bunny merely nodded in reply, and, turning to the clerk, begged him to excuse him as he had something of importance to tell the elder.
"If it is about Mrs. Galbraith, sir," replied the clerk, "I have just been telling the elder of it."
Bunny looked at him sharply from under his gray eyebrows, and the clerk, who was also his official subordinate, quailed under the glance.
"If so, you have been speaking of what you had no right to mention; but, as you appear to know something, stay and hear what I have to say, and you will hear what is the truth." Bunny then turned his back upon the clerk, and in as short a manner as possible described what had happened to the elder. He was no waster of words. He put what he had to say clearly before his listener, but his voice shook as he went on.
The elder, for the first time in his life, showed that he was moved. He had opposed Galbraith, quarrelled with him, and had spoken bitterly against his wife. He had thought that if some terrible sorrow overtook them it would be a righteous judgment, although he had never been able to explain to himself why this judgment should fall on them. And now that it had come, that it was staring him in all its hideous reality in the face, the elder was stirred to the deepest pity and compassion. "God help them!" he exclaimed, passing his handkerchief over his face to hide his emotion--"God help them!" When he had said this he remained silent, digging the end of his stout stick into a hassock which lay near his feet. The clerk interrupted the silence.
"Will there be service to-day?" he asked.
"Let everything go on as usual," replied the elder. "Mr. Bunny and myself will settle this when the time comes--and now, Bunny, a word with you."
The clerk took the hint and stepped back, and the two men, whose mutual jealousies had for some years past threatened to dissolve the community, walked arm-in-arm down the aisle between the grim rows of empty benches soon to be filled with Sabbath worshippers.
"Will he go?" asked the elder.