Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/453

 "HELD TO ANSWER!"

Instinctively Hampstead paused, like a man in a daze, then passed his hand before his eyes to blot the black letters from his sight. In the identification bureau, the meaning of those three words had just been defined to the most sensitive part of his nature in abhorrent and revolting terms. The sight of that headline to be flaunted on every street corner was like seeing these words, with their loathsome connotation, spread upon a banner that arched over the whole sky of life for him. It overwhelmed him with a sense of the public obloquy to which he was now to be subjected.

On the street car, as he rode homeward, the minister felt the eyes of the people upon him,—curiously he knew, derisively he imagined; yet some were in reality sympathetic. The conductor, as he took the clergyman's nickel, touched his hat respectfully, thus subtly indicating that there was some vestige of religious character still outwardly attaching to his person. And a workman, his tools in his hand and the stain of his craft upon his clothes, leaned over and touched the minister upon the arm.

"My boy was playing the ponies in Beany Webster's place," he said. "You saved him for me. I don't care what else you done; if they ever got me on the jury, there's one would never convict you of anything."

The minister recognized the friendliness of the remark with a cordial smile, and put out his hand to grasp gratefully the soiled one of the toiler. That handclasp was immensely strengthening to him. He felt as if he had taken hold of the great, steadying hand of God.