it," sighed Pill, looking down.

"Well, now, go back and tell 'em so. And then, if you can't keep your
place preaching what you do believe, get into something else. For the
sake of all morality and manhood, don't go on cursing yourself with
hypocrisy."

Mr. Pill took a chew of tobacco, rather distractedly, and said:

"I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"No, not now. You think out your present position yourself. Find out
just what you have saved from your land-slide."

The elder man rose; he hardly seemed the same man who had dominated his
people a few days before. He turned with still greater embarrassment.

"I want to ask a favor. I'm going back to my family. I'm going to say
something of what you've said, to my congregation--but--I'm in debt--and
the moment they know I'm a backslider, they're going to bear down on me
pretty heavy. I'd like to be independent."

"I see. How much do you need?" mused Radbourn.

"I guess two hundred would stave off the worst of them."

"I guess Brown and I can fix that. Come in again to-night. Or no, I'll
bring it round to you."

The two men parted with a silent pressure of the hand that meant more
than any words.

When Mr. Pill told his wife that he could preach no more, she cried, and
gasped, and scolded till she was in danger of losing her breath
entirely. "A guinea-hen sort of a woman" Councill called her. "She can
talk more an' say less'n any woman I ever see," was Bacon's verdict,
after she had been at dinner at his house. She was a perpetual irritant.

Mr. Pill silenced her at last with a note of impatience approaching a
threat, and he drove away to the Corners to make his confession without
her. It was Saturday night, and Elder Wheat was preaching as he entered
the crowded room. A buzz and mumble of surprise stopped the orator for a
few moments, and he shook hands with Mr. Pill dubiously, not knowing
what to think of it all, but as he was in the midst of a very effective
oratorical scene, he went on.

The silent man at his side felt as if he were witnessing a burlesque of
himself as he listened to the pitiless and lurid description of torment
which Elder Wheat poured forth--the same figures and threats he had used
a hundred times. He stirred uneasily in his seat, while the audience
paid so little attention that the perspiring little orator finally
called for a hymn, saying:

"Elder Pill has returned from his unexpected absence, and will exhort in
his proper pla