Evans was to go out of town for a little while; the proprietors of the _Saturday Afternoon_ insisted upon his taking a rest, and they behaved handsomely about his salary. He did not want to go, but his wife got him away finally, after he had failed in two or three attempts at writing. Lemuel did not appear to Sewell till the evening of the day when the Evanses left town. It seemed as if he had waited till they were gone, so that he could not be urged to visit them. At first the minister scolded him a little for his neglect; but Lemuel said he had heard about them, and knew they were getting along all right. He looked as if he had not been getting along very well himself; his face was thin, and had an air at once dogged and apprehensive. He abruptly left talking of Evans, and said, “I don't know as you heard what happened that night before the fire just after I got back from your house?” “No, I hadn't.” Lemuel stopped. Then he related briefly and cleanly the whole affair, Sewell interrupting him from time to time with murmurs of sympathy, and “Tchk, tchk, tchk!” and “Shocking, shocking!” At the end he said, “I had hoped somehow that the general calamity had swallowed up your particular trouble in it. Though I don't know that general calamities ever do that with particular troubles,” he added, more to himself than to Lemuel; and he put the idea away for some future sermon. “Mr. Evans stopped and said something to me that night. He said we had to live things down, and not die them down; he wanted I should wait till Saturday before I was sure that I couldn't get through Tuesday. He said, How did we know that death was the end of trouble?” “Yes,” said the minister, with a smile of fondness for his friend; “that was like Evans all over.” “I sha'n't forget those things,” said Lemuel. “They've been in my head ever since. If it hadn't been for them, I don't know what I should have done.” He stopped, and after a moment's inattention Sewell perceived that he wished to be asked something more. “I hope,” he said, “that nothing more has been going wrong with you?” and as he asked this he laid his hand affectionately on the young man's shoulder, just as Evans had done. Lemuel's eyes dimmed and his breath thickened. “What has become of the person--the discharged convict?” “I guess I had better tell you,” he said; and he told him of the adventure with Berry and Williams. Sewell listened in silence, and then seemed quite at a loss what to say; but Lemuel saw that he was deeply afflicted. At last he asked, lifting his eyes anxiously to Sewell's, “Do you think I did wrong to say the thief was a friend of mine, and get him off that way?” “That's a very difficult question,” sighed Sewell. “You had a duty to society.” “Yes, I've thought of that since!”