But now there was something like a movement in the gallery. The old Elder’s eye, noting everything, noted that; looking up, he saw that Rollie’s seat was empty; but higher up the gallery aisle the young man was visible, making his way quickly toward the stairs. That was right, he was coming down to vote; but he would be too late. "All in favor of the resolution severing the pastoral relation between All People’s Church and John Hampstead will signify by standing." The Elder rolled the words out sonorously. In his mind they stood for the thunder of divine judgment! The solid phalanxes upon his left arose as one man and stood while their impressive numbers were this time carefully counted by the clerk. The tally took some time. "Opposed, the same sign!" The Elder barked out the words like a challenge. Again the straggling group behind Hampstead arose. The minister himself stood up. As a member of the congregation, he had a right to vote, and he would protest to the last this injustice to him, this slander of All People’s upon itself. Mrs. Burbeck could not stand, but raised her hand, so thin and shell-like that it trembled while she held the white palm up to view. Elder Burbeck saw this and noted with a slight additional sense of shock that Rollie was now beside his mother and standing also to be counted with the Hampstead adherents. "The resolution is carried," said the clerk to the Elder. "The resolution—" echoed Burbeck, his voice beginning to gather enormous volume. But when he had got this far, his utterance was arrested by the sudden action of his son, who remained standing in the aisle, with one hand grasping his mother’s, and the other outstretched in some sort of appeal to him. "Father!" the boy whispered hoarsely; "don’t announce that vote! Don’t announce it!" This startling interruption appeared to freeze the whole scene fast. The throaty, excited tones of the young man floated to the far corners of the auditorium, and again the sense of some impending terror forced itself deeper into the crowd-consciousness. "Don’t announce it? What do you mean?" ejaculated the father in an irritated and widely audible whisper. The suddenness of this outbreak and the astounding fact that it should come from his own flesh, had thrown the Elder completely off his stride. "Because," the young man faltered, his face white, his eyes wild and staring, "because it’s wrong!" The huge dominating figure of a man stood for a moment nonplussed, wondering what hysteria could have overtaken his son; but annoyance and stubborn determination to proceed quickly manifested themselves upon his face. "Don’t, father!" pleaded the young man, advancing down the aisle, "Don’t! I’ve got something I must say!"