"Yes; I think I have scarcely a choice in the matter."

The Vicar was not one to keep his people long in ignorance of a
decision which affected both him and them so largely, and, on the
following Sunday morning, he told them in a few words that he must
leave them.

"Dear people," he said, "the decision has been sharp and sudden, and
the pain of it still lingers in my heart as I talk to you to-day; but I
dare not have it otherwise lest, in hesitating, my will should cross
the will of God, for, as soldiers must obey the command of their
captain, nor ask the reason why, so I, Christ's soldier and servant,
must be ready at His Word to pass on to where the battle is most
fierce, and where, maybe, the army needs reinforcement. Shall I be
less brave than Abraham, who, at the call of God, left home and kindred
to settle in a strange land amongst an alien people? Dear friends, as
clearly as God's message came to Abraham in those far-off days, it has
seemed to come to me, telling me to leave the home and people that I
love, and to go, work for Him in another part of His vineyard.
Therefore I obey."

There were tears on the upturned faces that listened, and, when the
people left the church, there was an almost universal wail of
lamentation. But reticent natures like the Macdonalds could find no
relief in words; they walked silently side by side with tears in their
eyes and an untold aching in their hearts.

"Life won't be the same again, John; we shan't get another like the
good man," said Mrs. Macdonald, as they neared home.

"No," said John, slowly. "But if he don't make a fuss about it, no
more won't we; he's sure about the call, and he dursn't disobey. But
now we'll save for the collectin'!"

"What collectin'?"

"They'll make him a present. They are sure to make him a present; and
we'll be ready when they call," said John.

But, with all his brave words, John's dinner was pushed away untouched,
and his broad back was turned resolutely to his wife so that she might
not guess that he was crying!

CHAPTER XIV.

A CHANGE OF MIND.

Three months later Paul Lessing stood, one morning in March, with his
hands thrust deep into his pockets, looking out of his sitting-room
window. His eyes rested on the little plot of ground before him, with
its borders of snowdrops and crocuses, and the road beyond, along which
the village children in their scarlet cloaks hurried to school: a
narrow boundary to a narrow l