But Gabriel Hirst was not forward with exhortation, as of old. He stood in a shadowed corner, his arms folded on his breast, his eyes wild with a battle of terror and determination. Griff, glancing up with an uneasy consciousness that some one was looking through and through him, met the preacher's eyes. In a flash it came to him what Gabriel was finding heart to do; he made a movement as if to cross to him, but stopped. What could he say or do to keep back this confession of a deed that was finished with long ago? He could do nothing, save watch the preacher move forward to the front, and listen to his stumbling words of introduction. Then Gabriel, finding his manhood, faltered no more, but walked steadily up the pulpit steps. His voice was low and firm; only the piteous working of his face betrayed his torment. He told how, upon a certain day, the seed of a thorn-tree was dropped in the cleft of a quarry-face; he described the breaking of the seed-shell, the growth of the sapling; he brought before the eyes of those present the picture of a merciful God watering the tree, tending it with jealous watchfulness. Then he talked of another seed, the seed of jealousy and hate. Years were needed to measure the growth of God's handiwork; but the evil in man increased by days, by hours, by minutes. Then, on a sudden, his voice went deeper. He leaned over the pulpit and looked across the sea of anxious faces to the place where Griff was sitting. "Stand up, Griff Lomax, and come to the front, and tell them all what a man did to you on the brink of Whins Quarry." But Griff made no movement, and the preacher told his own story. "The seed of jealousy was set in this man, and it grew in the space of a single day, till he was ripe for blows--nay, for worse. He waited for his friend at the edge of the quarry-face, and murder was in his heart." "Glory, glory!" shouted a woman at the rear of the chapel. She was in the throes of her own personal need for salvation, and her shout of joy came with a weird irrelevancy. "The man was myself," went on Gabriel, "and the friend that I waited for was Griff Lomax, whom I had loved as my own brother--ay, as David yearned over Jonathan I had loved the lad. But the seed of hate was planted, and grew apace. He came along by the path at the quarry-side, and I closed with him. The devil had gripped my heart; I forgot that the edge was close behind us; I cared for nothing in heaven or hell but vengeance. The devil strengthened my arms. I lifted the lad and threw him over my shoulder." "Hallelujah! Found Jesus, found Jesus!" yelled a weather-beaten quarryman, seated under the pulpit. Gabriel paused and dashed his hand across his forehead; the sweat ran off in a stream and dripped to the pulpit ledge. A hoarse murmur went from lip to lip of the listening crowd. "I heard the rumbling of stones as he went over the brink, and then a splash in the pool at the bottom."