He seemed to choke for a word, and there was a moment of awful stillness in the room. They waited, but he seemed unable to speak, and lapsed into his previous condition of stupor, leaving them smitten into wonder and praying that he might be spared. "Do you think we had better rouse him, doctor?" the judge asked after a while. "It will do no harm. He was trying to tell us about the affair in Freetown." They tried to rouse him from his stupor, but failed. It was growing late in the afternoon; and, as the sun went down, they all waited and prayed. [Illustration: "_Have you heard the news?_"] The evening service at Emmanuel Church was over, and the Rev. Howard Douglass was just going out of the church with his wife, talking with a small group of church-members, as he went, about the plan to redeem Freetown. As they came out upon the steps, a man came walking up hastily. "Have you heard the news?" he called out. "They have caught Burke Williams. He was hiding in a barn up in Freetown." The little company of church people stood still. The minister looked grave. "That is not all," said the man. "I just came by Judge Vernon's. His son died a few minutes ago." The Rev. Howard Douglass turned to the people around him. "Let us go back into the church and pray," he said. They turned and entered the building. The sexton had begun to put out the lights. They kneeled in the rear of the church and prayed for the living. And over the city of Merton, in the thought of Howard Douglass as he kneeled there, the Spirit was brooding, yearning that men might listen to the words of eternal life, and turn from their sins and be redeemed. CHAPTER IV. THE CARLTONS' TROUBLE. It was two weeks after Claude Vernon's death. The Carlton house was lighted brilliantly, and a gay card-party was in progress. The rooms were beautifully decorated with carnations. Great vases of Niphetos and Perle roses stood on the marble mantels. Festoons of costly vines were hung about the walls, and a fountain of perfumed water played in the wide hall. A band of mandolin musicians was stationed in a handsome alcove near the stairway. As one entered this richly adorned mansion, everything pleased the eye, the young people were laughing and jesting, the groups about the different tables were animated groups of happy color; and, if there was another world outside, of vice and sin and need, no hint of such a world was suggested by the surroundings of this party of pleasure-seekers. Yet there was a cloud on the face of the mistress of all this gayety. Mrs. Carlton herself was evidently disturbed and unhappy. Even her accustomed habit of self-control, that mask which society often compels its slaves to wear, could not conceal her real feelings. "What is the matter, Louise?" asked one of her friends, Mrs. Lynde, as she stopped by the hostess near the staircase; "are you ill?"