Though I read the letter over a great many times (having gone to one of the upper rooms for the purpose, where I could see the people passing, and looking wonderingly at the house to see it shut up so tight), I could make nothing out of it further than that the Rev. John Westlock had run away, taking Mrs. B. Tremaine with him, and that he had been infatuated with her for seven years, a circumstance of which I had not the remotest suspicion until that day. I knew now that on his visits to the country he met this woman at some convenient place, but beyond that, and the fear once expressed by Barker that his religion would prove an unfortunate thing for him, I was puzzled to understand it, further than the letter had explained. I knew now that the trouble which caused him to quit preaching, and to seclude himself from callers at the office, related to the woman, but I had never suspected it before, for I had never tried to explain his thoughtfulness, believing it was simply his way, and that his father had been a thinking man before him. He was a man of such excellent sense that suspicion would not attach to him, particularly suspicion of weakness in religion or morality, and I only thought of it to become more puzzled. Before night I came to the conclusion, though it gave me a sad heart, that the sooner the community was made aware of the matter, the sooner would its gossiping and conjecturing cease, and when night was setting in, I hailed a boy who was passing, and sent a note to Martin requesting him to come to the house. He came soon after, when I explained everything to him, and read the letter, which he heard with great surprise. I then requested him to go wherever there was a crowd that evening, and tell it, to the end that the people might discuss it through the night, as I preferred that course to a suspense of several weeks, for we could have kept it from them that long on one pretext and another. Martin approved of this idea, though he was too much surprised to say much else, and when he went out, I saw him stop people on the street, and talk with them, and who at once looked up at the house, and seemed greatly surprised. No lights were lit in the house that night, and I spent the hours in wandering through the vacant rooms; in wondering what the people were saying about it; how they would feel with reference to my continuing the business, and how they explained it all. Frequently I went into the room where my mother was lying down, and she was still for such a long time that I hoped she was oblivious to her trouble in sleep, but in waiting to assure myself of it before retiring, I heard her sob in such a pitiful manner that I resumed my walk through the lonely rooms, and listened again to the echoes of my own footsteps. * * * * *