A susceptible nature like Morton's takes color from other people. He was conscious that Magruder's confidence in him was weakened, and it seemed to him that all the brethren and sisters looked at him askance. When he came to make the concluding prayer he had a sense of hollowness in his devotions, and he really began to suspect that he might be a hypocrite. In the afternoon the Quarterly Conference met, and in the presence of class-leaders, stewards, local preachers and exhorters from different parts of the circuit, the once popular preacher felt that he had somehow lost caste. He received fifteen dollars of the twenty which the circuit owed him, according to the discipline, for three months of labor; and small as was the amount, the scrupulous and now morbid Morton doubted whether he were fairly entitled to it. Sometimes he thought seriously of satisfying his doubting conscience by marrying Ann Eliza with or without love. But his whole proud, courageous nature rebelled against submitting to marry under compulsion of Magruder's threat. At the evening service Goodwin had to preach, and he got on but poorly. He looked in vain for Miss Ann Eliza Meacham. She was not there to go through the audience and with winning voice persuade those who were smitten with conviction to come to the mourner's bench for prayer. She was not there to pray audibly until every heart should be shaken. Morton was not the only person who missed her. So famous a "working Christian" could not but be a general favorite; and the people were not slow to divine the cause of her absence. Brother Goodwin found the faces of his brethren averted, and the grasp of their hands less cordial. But this only made him sulky and stubborn. He had never meant to excite Sister Meacham's expectations, and he would not be driven to marry her.