Barbara Stafford had not spoken a word in his presence, yet her silence and the very atmosphere of truth that surrounded her had affected him deeply. After this interview he began to doubt more than ever if the great excitement of the day might not merge into persecution; if the pure and the good might not possibly suffer with those given over to the prince of darkness. CHAPTER XLII. OLD FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. When Sir William returned home, he found Samuel Parris, his old patron and early preceptor, waiting for him. The good man had taken his staff and walked all the way from Salem, to seek counsel and consolation of his powerful friend. Between these two men was a tie which no one could fathom--a tie stronger than that which might have bound master and pupil, or benefactor and protege. Phipps had sprung from a poor apprentice boy, to be the richest and most powerful man in New England. He had won title and wealth from the mother government, by his indomitable energies, while Samuel Parris had dreamed his life away, under the roof where the embryo great man had taken his first charity lesson. But though one was a man of thought, and the other of progress, no distance of time nor station could separate them. Governor Phipps was in the prime of life, a man of noble presence, strong in intellect and in power. Parris was old and bowed to the earth with trouble; the white locks floated thinly over his temples, his black eyes were sharp and wild with protracted anguish. But the two met kindly, as they had done years before. The strong man forgot his successful ambition, and the state to which it had led. With the feeble old minister he was an apprentice boy again. Sir William found the minister sitting in his library, exhausted with fatigue and completely broken down by the awful affliction that had fallen upon him. Dust from the road lay thick upon his heavy shoes and along the seams of his black garments, while it turned his snow white hair to a dull gray. His stout cane was planted hard on the carpet, and his weary head fell on the withered hands clenched tremulously over it. Thus tired, desolate, and broken-hearted, the old man waited for his former pupil. "My dear, old master--my best friend!" cried Phipps, smitten with a thousand memories, both of pain and pleasure at the sight of his preceptor. "I can guess what has brought you hither. The same subject is weighing on my own heart. I have just returned from a conference with that unhappy lady." Samuel Parris looked up eagerly. "You saw her? She spoke with you? Tell me, tell me, did the woman confess?" "Nay, she did not speak." "What, obstinately silent? does the evil spirit take that course?" said Parris. "Not obstinately silent: I did not say that; on the contrary, she seemed deeply moved, and her sobs filled the room as I left it." "But she confessed nothing?" "Nothing!" "Nor has she told any one a word of her own history?" "Not a word."