t as you will, we
cannot do so with too much caution. It is a disagreeable errand for a
man to undertake. Let us at least defer judgment for the present. I will
speak to Mrs. Edgar about it myself, and communicate the result
immediately to you. Do you prefer to remain here till I return?"

He arose as he spoke, but Deane rose also. It had at last penetrated the
brain of this most shrewd, but also very dull man, that the business
might be conducted with courtesy, and that a little skill might manage
it as effectually as a good deal of courage.

"No, no," he said; "he could trust the business to the minister. Liked
to do so, of course. If there was any shame or remorse in the woman, Mr.
Muir was the proper person to deal with it."

And so Deane retired.

But when he was gone, the minister stood listening to his departing
steps as long as they could be heard; then he sat down in his
study-chair, and seemed in no haste to go about the business with which
he stood commissioned.

Still the organ-music wandered through the church. Prayer of Moses,
Miserere, De Profundis, the Voice of One crying in the Wilderness, a
Song in the Night, the darkness of desolation rifted only by the cry for
deliverance, tragic human experience, exhausted human hope, and dying
faith,--he seemed to interpret the sounds as they swept from the
organ-loft and wandered darkly down the nave among the great stone
pillars, till they stood, a dismal congregation, at the low door of the
vestry-room, pleading with him for her who sent them thither, and
astounding him by the hot calumniation that preceded them.

At last, for he was a man to _do_ his duty, in spite of whatsoever
shrinking,--and if this accusation were true, it would be indeed hard to
forgive, impossible to overlook the offence,--the minister walked out
from the vestry into the church.

The organist must have heard him coming, for she broke off suddenly, and
dismissed the boy who worked the bellows, at the same moment herself
rising to depart.

Just then the minister ascended the steps that led into the choir.

She had no purpose to remain a moment, and merely paused for civil
speech, choosing, however, that he should see she was detained.

He did not accept the signs, and, with his usual grave deference to the
will of others in things trivial, allow her to pass. He said,
instead,--

"Mrs. Edgar, I wish you might give me a moment, though I do not see how
what I have undertaken can