ay afternoon he had gone sailing with her; to-day he was
voicing her own beliefs from the pulpit whose former incumbent had
strangled and throttled them with his tyranny of weakness.

Of her father and the influence this sermon might have on him she did
not just then think at all. She like the others was being swept on a
tide of rapt attention--and she had forgotten that William Williams was
not at home in his study. But as that discourse progressed one might
have followed the ebb and flow of a man's life-battle, had he watched
only the face of the old man, in the wheel chair, crowned with a white
mane.

First there was the expression of exaltation which mutely proclaimed: "A
prophet is risen among us," but after it came swift doubt and
foreboding. The eagle eyes, deep-set in the thin face, were clouded and
hurt. Tho talon-like fingers clutched at their chair arms. Must he sit
here constrained to silence, while another confounded his teachings?

After doubt came certainty under which the sunken eyes of the paralyzed
man smouldered fiercely and his face blanched to the deadness of
parchment. This was all a passionate and revolutionary appeal for
liberality--or--by his interpretation--for license. It mounted into an
indictment against the cramping evils of intolerance, it scathingly
denounced the goodness of the strait-jacket until the old minister saw
every effort of his life assailed and vilified. His mind, distorted by
suffering and brooding, beheld a prophet indeed, but a prophet who
carried Satan's commission and who dared to serve it in the house of
God.

Would God himself remain silent and unavenging under such insult? He at
least, the lifelong servant, would not sit voiceless while his Master
was libeled. He who had spoken here many hundreds of times before would
speak once more and his last message would be one of scourging from the
temple desecrators more evil than money-changers.

But he shook with so palsied a fury that for a time he could only
surrender to his physical weakness. With a mighty effort he braced his
withered body and pulled himself forward. He knew he was killing
himself, but he would fall at his sentry post, challenging the enemy.

Sam Haymond, himself oblivious until now to all but his own
earnestness, brought his gaze back to the chair just below him--and
suddenly the resonance of his swelling voice fell silent--snapped by
astonishment with a word half spoken.

Of the tragedy which wa