In one moment of time his mind had become an utter blank--an utter blank, that is to say, so far as his intended discourse was concerned. It was as though a hideous black curtain had been suddenly dropped between him and that section of his brain in which originated the thoughts and ideas it had been his intention this morning to expound and illustrate for, as he had fondly hoped, the spiritual profit of those who were there to listen to him. But thoughts and ideas were all gone, and in their place was nothing but an awful blank. Then, deep down in his heart, he heard a low, clear voice: "Impious wretch!" it said. "How dare you stand here to preach to others a doctrine to which your own life offers so emphatic a lie? You have perjured yourself--you have accepted the wages of a lie, and have helped to rob your best friend of his daily bread. You an expounder of the Word! You a preacher of morality to your fellows! Hide your face, vile hypocrite! Go down on your knees, and crave forgiveness for your heinous sin." All this and more flashed like a fiery scroll across Ephraim's mental vision in far less time than it would have taken to speak the words. He stood dumbfounded and aghast. To the eyes of everyone there he looked as though he had been seized with a sudden illness, and might at any moment fall back in a faint. Half the audience rose impulsively to their feet, while Iredale and a couple of "Elders" hastily made their way to the platform. "What's come over you? Are you ill?" whispered Iredale. Ephraim's sole reply was a stare. Then they placed him in a chair, and someone brought a glass of water. Then John Iredale, after a few words of apology and a brief prayer, dismissed the congregation. Before this Mrs. Judd was by her son's side. All Ephraim said was: "Take me home, mother--take me away from here." CHAPTER XXIII. POOR JOHN! Miss Brancker had told her brother that, whether he liked it or no, she should insist on his taking a month's holiday before he even began to look for another situation, and at the time she quite believed in her power to make him to do so. It was not as if he could not afford a holiday, for he had between three and four hundred pounds put away, which he had saved up month by month, a little at a time, out of his salary. But John in a situation and John out of one were two very different people. To have taken a holiday under his present circumstances would, to his thrifty notions, have seemed both a waste of time and a waste of money. Instead of enjoying himself he would simply have "grizzled," to use his own term, and would have come back worse in health, both of mind and body, then he went. Even Miss Brancker, after a day or two, was compelled to admit that it would be useless to press the point further.