"Yes, mother!" the young man urged anxiously, putting an instinctive pressure upon the hands he held, as if to call the spirit back into her again. There was an instant in which he felt that it was gone. She had left him. But the next instant he felt it coming back again like a tide and stronger, much stronger, so that there was real color in her cheeks, and then the eyes opened and looked at him with a clear and steady light, with the glow of love and admiration in them. "Thank God!" murmured the voice of Hampstead hoarsely. "She is back. She will stay." "Yes," Mrs. Burbeck affirmed, faintly but valiantly, turning from the face of her son to that of the minister with a look of inexpressible gratitude and devotion. "Yes, I am back," she smiled reassuringly, "and to stay. I never had so much reason—so much to live for as now." The enactment of this scene at the chair, so intense and so significant, could have consumed no more than two minutes of time. The congregation, keenly alive to the effect the disclosure must have upon the life of the mother, was in a state to witness with the most perfect understanding every detail of the action about the invalid’s chair. While the issue was in doubt, the audience remained in an agony of suspense and apprehension. With the sudden look of relief upon the face of the minister, followed presently by a luminous smile of pure joy while his shoulders straightened to indicate the rolling off of the burden of his fears, the suspense for the congregation was completely ended. Reactions began immediately to occur. Far up in the gallery a woman laughed, an excited, hysterical, brainless laugh, and every eye darted upon her in reproach. Then down in front somewhere near the first line of the Burbeck adherents, a man began to sob, hoarsely and with a wailing note, as if in utter despair. Again every eye swung from the woman who had laughed to the man who was crying. As they fell on him, he stood up. It was Elder Brooks, the man who had written the resolution declaring the pastoral relation severed. With streaming eyes he was hurrying toward Hampstead. But now other women were laughing hysterically, other men were sobbing. Everywhere was exclamation, movement, and a sudden impulse toward the minister. The people in the gallery came down, crowding dangerously, to the rail. On the main floor little rivulets of excited human beings trickled out from the pews and streamed down the aisles. The first to reach Hampstead was a woman. She caught his hand and kissed it. Elder Brooks came next. He flung an arm about the minister’s neck, but instead of looking at him or addressing him, covered his face in shame.