"Let there be no haste," said Luke Claridge, in a voice that shook a
little in his struggle for self-control.

Another heretofore silent Elder, sitting beside John Fairley, exchanged
words in a whisper with him, and then addressed them. He was a very
small man with a very high stock and spreading collar, a thin face, and
large wide eyes. He kept his chin down in his collar, but spoke at the
ceiling like one blind, though his eyes were sharp enough on occasion.
His name was Meacham.

"It is meet there shall be time for sorrow and repentance," he said.
"This, I pray you all, be our will: that for three months David live
apart, even in the hut where lived the drunken chair-maker ere he
disappeared and died, as rumour saith--it hath no tenant. Let it be that
after to-morrow night at sunset none shall speak to him till that time be
come, the first day of winter. Till that day he shall speak to no man,
and shall be despised of the world, and--pray God--of himself. Upon the
first day of winter let it be that he come hither again and speak with
us."

On the long stillness of assent that followed there came a voice across
the room, from within a grey-and-white bonnet, which shadowed a delicate
face shining with the flame of the spirit within. It was the face of
Faith Claridge, the sister of the woman in the graveyard, whose soul was
"with the Lord," though she was but one year older and looked much
younger than her nephew, David.

"Speak, David," she said softly. "Speak now. Doth not the spirit move
thee?"