mission to purge the church of this impostor, his zeal roused him to the point where he forgot to be logical. He believed the preacher was a thief, a liar and a hypocrite; and at the same time believed that he had told the truth upon the witness stand in his own defense. But this only made his sin more heinous. He was harboring some crook—some other man, weak, frail, brittle, wicked as himself. That man was necessarily a hypocrite, a whited sepulcher, posing before the community as a pillar of virtue. It would be an act of righteousness to find and expose that man. But who could it be? Somebody at that supper, of course. Now it might be Haggard, managing editor of The Sentinel; newspaper men were always suspicious characters, anyway; and surely Hampstead was under obligations to Haggard. Haggard, with all his publicity, had given the minister his first fame, and for years supported him upon his pedestal as a public idol. Yes, it probably was Haggard. But whoever it was, Burbeck undertook in his mind a second mission; to find and expose and brand the thief whom the minister was protecting.
With no more fiery fanaticism did the followers of Mohammed set out with the sword to purge the world of infidels than did Elder Burbeck purpose to purge All People's of its pastor and wring from the lips of Hampstead the secret of another's crime.
He entered the minister's study with a pompous dignity that was ominous. His face was as red, the bony protuberances on his boxlike and hairless skull were as prominent, as ever. His shaggy eyebrows lent their usual fierceness to the steel gleam of his blue eye. His close-cropped gray mustache clung perilously above lips that were straight and unsmiling.
"Good evening, Hampstead," he said, with a falling inflection.
