Every head was bowed; hardly a single person heard or saw him move away into the vestry, and a great silence fell upon the church. As if in a dream, the tall figure in its white linen ephod passed through the outer vestry into the large and comfortable room used by the priests. No one was there, and Joseph sank upon his knees in prayer. He had been sending up his passionate supplications for the souls of those without but a few seconds, when he felt a touch--a timid, hesitating touch--upon his shoulder. He looked up, and saw a little elderly man, wearing the long velvet-trimmed gown which signalized a verger in St. Elwyn's, standing by his side. The old man's face was moving and working with strong emotion, and a strange blaze of eagerness shone in his eyes. "Master," he said, "I heard it all, every word you said to them; and it is true--every word is bitter true. Master, there is one who has need of you, and in God's name I pray you to go with me." "In God's name I will come with you, brother," Joseph answered gravely. "Ay," the old man answered, "I felt my prayer would be answered, Master." He took Joseph's surplice from him, divested himself of his own gown, and opened the vestry door. "You found this way when you came, Master," he said. "The public do not know of it, for it goes through the big livery-stables. The district is so crowded. No one will see us when we leave the church, though there are still thousands of people waiting for you to pass in front. But my poor home is not far away." As they walked, the old man told his story to Joseph. His son, a young fellow of eighteen or nineteen, had been employed as basement porter in the Countess of Morston's Regent Street shop for the selling of artistic, hand-wrought metal work. Like many another fashionable woman in London, Lady Morston was making a large sum of money out of her commercial venture. But the repousse work which she sold was made by half-starved and sweated work-people in the East End of town, and all the employees in the shop itself were miserably underpaid. From early morning, sometimes till late at night, the old fellow's son had been at work carrying about the heavy crates of metal. His wages had been cut down to the lowest possible limit, and when he had asked for a rise he had been told that a hundred other young fellows would be glad to step into his shoes at any moment. One day the inevitable collapse had come. He had found himself unable to continue the arduous labor, and had left the position. Almost immediately after his departure he had been attacked with a long and painful nervous complaint. Unable, owing to the fact of his resignation, to claim any compensation from the countess as a legal right, he had humbly petitioned for a little pecuniary help to tide him over his illness. This had been coldly refused, and the young man was now bedridden and a permanent encumbrance to the old man, who himself was unable to do anything but the lightest work.