"Well, say, men," cried George Brotherton in the confusion of hissing and groaning, "can't you let the man talk? Is free speech dead in this town?" His great voice silenced the crowd, and John Dexter was in the pulpit holding out his hands. As he spoke the congregation grew silent, and they heard him say: "This is a free pulpit; this man shall not be disturbed." But Joseph Calvin stamped noisily out of the church. John Kollander and his wife marched out behind him with military tread and Kyle Perry and Ahab Wright with their families followed, amid a shuffling of feet and a clamor of voices. The men from South Harvey kept their places. There was a whispering among them and Grant, fearing that they would start trouble, called to them sternly: "My friends must respect this house. Let property riot--poverty can wait. It has waited a long time and is used to it." When Market Street was gone, the speaker drew a deep breath and said in a low, quiet voice charged with pent-up emotion: "Now that we are alone, friends,--now that they are gone whose hearts needed this message, let me say just this: God has given you who live beautiful lives the keeping of his treasure. Let us ask ourselves this: Shall we keep it to share it with our brethren in love, or shall we guard it against our brethren in hate?" He walked back to the rear of the room and sat, with his head bowed down, beside his friends, spent and weary while the services closed. At the church door Laura Van Dorn saw the despair that was somewhat a physical reaction from weariness. So she cut her way through the group and went to him, taking his arm and drawing him aside into the homebound walk, as quickly as she could. He remained grim and spoke only in answer to challenge or question from Laura. It was plain to her that he felt that his speech was a failure; that he had not made himself understood; that he had overstated his case. She was not sure herself that he had not lost more ground than he had gained in the town. But she wrapped him about in a garment of kindness--an almost maternal tenderness that was balm to his heart. She did not praise his speech but she let him know that she was proud of him, that her heart was in all that he had said, even if he felt definitely that there were places in his adventure where her head was not ready to go. She held no check upon the words that came to her lips, for she felt, even deeper and surer than she felt her own remoteness from the love which her girlhood had known, that in him it was forever dead. No touch of his hand; no look of his eye, no quality of his voice had come to her since her childhood, in which she could find trace or suggestion that sex was alive in him. The ardor that burned so wildly upon his face, the fire in his eyes that glowed when he spoke of his work and his problems, seemed to have charred within him all flower and beauty of romance. But they left with him a hunger for sympathy.