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252 But he got no further. He was suddenly aware that in the doorway leading from the hall Ruth Tracy was standing, and the mysterious power of her presence struck silence into his defaming tongue. At her side was her mother, and behind them was the master of the house. The loud voices, the heated retorts, heard by them through the open doors as they sat in their room across the hall, had drawn them resistlessly to the scene of the conflict. At the moment of Westgate's startled pause, Ruth, after flinging one scornful glance at her former lover, swept across the hall and put her arm protectingly around Mary Bradley's waist. The vestrymen all started to their feet, and some of them began to talk excitedly, and to make loud demands. The situation had become acute, extreme, impossible.

The bishop rose and threw both his hands into the air above his head.

"I will hear no more!" he cried, his voice rising high above the increasing clamor in the room. "I will hear no more!" he repeated, "and may God give you better hearts before we meet again."

Ruth drew Mary Bradley from the room, pushing by her mother who stood in the doorway sobbing and clinging to her astounded husband. The vestrymen "went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last."

Only the minister remained. The bishop turned to him, smiled grimly, and said:

"'Where are those thine accusers?'"

And the minister replied: "They have cast their handful of stones at me and have gone."

"Farrar, I want you to come with me to my room."

Two hours later the rector of Christ Church left the Tracy mansion, and started down the hill toward home in the face of a blinding snow-storm. And ever and anon, as he strode along, he broke away from the memory of the heart-searching counsel given to him by