recommend it, it will be acted upon to-morrow morning by the congregation. If they do not receive it, I shall myself bring it before the congregation."
A look of deepening pain crossed the features of the minister.
"Not to-morrow," he pleaded, his voice choking strangely; "not to-morrow. I have been counting greatly on to-morrow. It has been a hard week. Man!" and Hampstead suddenly arose, "man, have you not heart enough to realize what this has been to me. I long passionately for the privilege of standing again in the pulpit of All People's. I want them to see how undaunted in spirit I am. I want them to judge for themselves the mark of conscious innocence upon my face. I want to feel myself once more under the gaze of a thousand pairs of eyes, every one of which I know is friendly. I want the whole of Oakland to know that my church is solidly behind me; that though in a Court of Justice I am 'Held to Answer', in the Court of the Lord and before the jury of my own church, I stand approved, with the very stigma of official shame recognized as a decoration of honor."
Hampstead had walked around the desk. He lifted his hand in appeal and sought to lay it upon the shoulder of the Elder to express the sympathy and the need of sympathy which he felt.
But Burbeck deliberately moved out of reach, replying sternly and perhaps vindictively:
"Hampstead! You do not appear to appreciate your position. You will never again stand in the pulpit of All People's. That is one sacrilege which you have committed for the last time. More than that, I hold it to be my duty to God to wring from your own lips the secret of the man whom you are shielding, and I shall find a way to do it! I—"
