As, during the brief remnant of the service, Hemstead dropped into consciousness of the world around him, he felt at first, rather than saw, the chill he had caused, instead of a glow answering to his own feelings. As he looked more closely, he imagined he detected a gloomy and forbidding expression on the faces turned towards him. The Gospel--the message of good news that he had brought--appeared to shadow the audience like a passing cloud. After dismission, the people aroused themselves as from an oppressive dream. The few greetings and congratulations that he received as he passed down the aisle seemed formal and constrained, and, he thought, a little insincere. He was still more puzzled as he overheard Miss Martell say to Harcourt at the door, "I am sorry you heard that sermon." "I am, too," he replied, "for it seemed true." "It's only half-truth," she said earnestly. "The Lord deliver me, then; this half is more than I can stand." Lottie scarcely spoke during the drive home, and Hemstead noted, with pain, that her face had a hard, defiant look. It occurred to him that he had not seen any who appeared to have enjoyed the service. There were long pauses at the dinner-table, and after one of the longest, Mr. Dimmerly abruptly remarked, in his sententious manner: "Well, nephew, I suppose you gave us a powerful sermon this morning. It has made us all deucedly uncomfortable, anyhow. But I've no doubt the old rule holds good, the worse the medicine is to take the more certain to cure." Lottie's response to this remark was a ringing laugh, in which the others, in the inevitable reaction from the morbid gloom, joined with a heartiness that was most annoying to the young clergyman. "You must excuse me, Mr. Hemstead," said she, after a moment, "I have had the blues all day, and have reached that point where I must either laugh or cry, and prefer the former at the dinner-table." Hemstead stiffly bowed as his only response. He was too chagrined, puzzled, and disappointed to venture upon a reply, and after this one lurid gleam of unnatural mirth the murky gloom of the day seemed to settle down more heavily than before. After dinner De Forrest tried to secure Lottie's society for the afternoon. The refusal was kind, not careless, as had been often the case. Indeed her whole manner towards him might be characterized as a grave, remorseful kindness, such as we might show towards a child or an inferior that we had wronged somewhat. De Forrest, finding that Lottie would persist in going to her room, went to his also, and took a long, comfortable nap. Bel wanted to talk about the sermon, but as Lottie would not talk about anything, she, too, soon forgot her spiritual anxieties in sleep. But Lottie sat and stared at her fire, and Hemstead, deserted by all, stared at the fire in the parlor; and both were sorely troubled and perplexed. CHAPTER XIX. THE PREACHER TAUGHT BY THE PAGAN