“Have your moderators to suit yourselves!” he shouted, with a thump of his fist on the desk that made Uncle Paul dodge. “I’m down here now on this floor as a man that won’t see this innocent girl harried nor put out of a place where she is earning her honest living. Who are you, Esther Dunham, to analyse the emotions of the human heart? A self-operating dishwashing machine. What is your old husband that he can understand them, either? A doubled-over grub worm. The two of you hungry for something in your lives, you don’t know what! But you shall not shut your eyes and tear the innocent! Eleven thousand dollars in the banks, eh?” He snarled the words at them. “Rooted by your snouts out of the soil, and you never lifting your eyes to God’s sun and sky and open heart and loving eye and generous impulse. Oh, I know I am harsh and bitter! It is as hard for me to say it as it is for you to hear it. I am bitter toward all of you that live that way, and you in this town have always known my feelings. I dare to tell you the truths about yourselves, and only the sharp-pointed truth will dig into your hides. I dare to say to you, Esther Dunham, that you have maligned a pure and innocent girl who has minded her own business. I dare to tell you that you have trampled upon the torch of love in your own house until you have trod out every spark. “You wouldn’t let your husband love and do for his own child as he ought. He don’t know what is the matter with him, that’s the trouble. He has been bumping around like an old blind mule. He don’t know his own heart. “Why, all under God’s heavens he needs is the love of a child--a child, Esther Dunham. He has seen again in this poor girl the image of the one he lost. He has built another altar for his affections, and if it is outside of your own walls, blame yourself, Esther.” He clapped his finger smartly against his palm. “Wake up, ‘Caje! Wake up, my man! Can’t you see now what the hankering in your heart meant?” The old farmer tucked his head between his arms on the desk and wept weakly. His wife sat staring straight before her. “Poor little girl!” softly said the Squire. He tiptoed back down the aisle and smoothed the little teacher’s curls. “Poor little girl! You have been ground between two hard millstones--and none of you knew, none of you knew.” He gazed long, silently and rebukingly over the assemblage. The people shifted uneasily, shuttling their eyes from him to the floor. “Now, who wants to stand forth as persecutor of this abused child?” he demanded, his hand protectingly on her head. No one stirred or spoke. In the silence he walked slowly up the aisle and bent down over the wife who stood staring into vacancy. “Esther!” he said softly, and when she looked up at him after a time he gazed at her with his eyes softening. “Poor old mother!” He said it with infinite tenderness. He waited awhile.