The building was very full,--and it was difficult to see where, if any strangers did arrive, they could be accommodated. Miss Eden, in her capacity as organist, was still playing the opening voluntary, but, despite the fact that there was no apparent disturbance of the usual order of things, there was a certain air of hushed expectancy among the people which was decidedly foreign to the normal atmosphere of St. Rest. The village lasses looked at each other's hats with keener interest,--the lads fidgeted with their ties and collars more strenuously, and secreted their caps more surreptitiously behind their legs,--and the most placid-looking personage in the whole congregation was Josey Letherbarrow, who, in a very clean smock, with a small red rose in his buttonhole, and his silvery hair parted on either side and just touching his shoulders, sat restfully in his own special corner not far from the pulpit, leaning on his stick and listening with rapt attention to the fall and flow of the organ music as it swept round him in soft and ever decreasing eddies of sound. The bells ceased, and eleven o'clock struck slowly from the church tower. At the last stroke, the Reverend John entered the chancel in his plain white surplice, spotless as new-fallen snow,-and as he knelt for a moment in silent devotion, the voluntary ended with a grave, long, sustained chord. A pause,--and then the 'Passon' rose, and faced his little flock, his hand laid on the open 'Book of Common Prayer.' "When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive." Walden's voice rang clear and sonorous,--the sunshine pouring through the plain glass of the high rose-window behind and above him, shed effulgence over the ancient sarcophagus in front of the altar and struck from its alabaster whiteness a kind of double light which, circling round his tall slight figure made it stand out in singularly bold relief. "If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." A ripple of gay laughter here echoed in through the church doors, which were left open for air on account of the great heat of the day. There was an uneasy movement in the congregation,--some men and women glanced at one another. That light, careless laughter was distinctly discordant. The Reverend John drew himself up a little more rigidly erect, and his face grew a shade paler. Steadily, he read on:-- "Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness; and that we should not dissemble nor cloke them before the face of Almighty God our Heavenly Father, but confess them with an humble, lowly, penitent and obedient heart---"