ir by the altar and watched the congregation filing out
of the church. A great many seemed to be departing, but it was
impossible to tell as yet the number that remained. Mr. Windle had
been so very definite, so confident in his assertion of the number
of communicants. He looked at his watch. The service had taken longer
than usual. He stood up before they had all gone and poured out the
wine into the chalices. From where he had been sitting it was
impossible to see those sides of the church that formed the cross
upon which the foundations had been laid, and so, though only a few
people remained in the centre aisle, he felt no cause for uneasiness.
Mr. Windle had been well assured, and he ought to know.
It was when he stood waiting for the communicants to approach the
altar and saw all the church empty itself into the chancel like a
stream which has been dammed and is set free, that he realized his
mistake.
There were not more than twenty people, and with his own willing and
ready hands he had consecrated all the wine which he had poured out
into the vessel in the vestry. What was the meaning of it? Why had
Mr. Windle told him sixty, or more, when scarcely twenty attended?
He stood waiting in the vestry afterwards with the well-filled
chalice in his hand, tremulously anticipating Mr. Windle's arrival.
His face was twitching spasmodically. The unseen fingers were busy.
They never left him alone.
"_It shall not be carried out of the church, but the priest and such
others of the communicants as he shall call unto him shall,
immediately after the blessing, reverently eat and drink the same._"
So it alluded in the rubric of the Book of Common Prayer to the leaving
over of consecrated wine. In the mind of the Rev. Samuel, Mr. Windle
was that other communicant.
"What shall I do?" he began, directly the devout warden entered.
Mr. Windle was beaming with good nature. He had just been talking
to a lady--the last to leave the church--who had told him that he
had read the lessons with great feeling; and, while he despised all
emotion as sacrilegious in the precincts of God's house of worship,
he liked to be thought capable of it.
Seeing the cup in Mr. Bishop's hand and the dismayed expression on
that gentleman's countenance, he smiled.
"This has to be--be finished," said the distraught clergyman.
"Ah, I'm sorry about that," replied Mr. Windle, easily. "Under
ordinary circumstances, there would have been as man
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