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“I don’t know that any good will grow out of seeing him,” said Mr. Grant, who felt but little inclined to meet the preacher.

“I’m sorry to hear you say that, Mr. Grant. You have made a complaint against Mr. C–, and when he wishes to confer with you on the subject, you decline, under the assumption that no good can arise from it. This is not right; and I hope you will think better of it.”

“Perhaps it isn’t right; but so it is. At present, I do not wish to see him. I may feel differently to-morrow.”

“Shall we call upon-you in the morning?”

“If you please to do so.”

“Very well.”

And the two official members departed.

No sooner were they gone, than Mr. Grant put or his hat and left his shop. He went direct to the store of Mr. Harrison.

“You are just the man I was thinking about,” said the latter, as the jeweller entered. “What is all this trouble about you and Mr. C–? I hear some rumour of it at every turn.”

“That is just what I have come to see you about.”

“Very well; what can I do in the matter? Mr. C–, you allege, has held you up in the congregation to public odium?”

“I do.”

“In what way?”

“Strange that you should ask the question.”

“Why so? What have I to do with it?”

“A great deal,” said Grant, his brows falling as he spoke.

“I must plead innocence until shown my guilt. So far, I have not even been able to learn in what the allusion to yourself consisted.”

“You have not?”

“No.”

Grant stood, tightly compressing his lips, for some moments. He then said:

“You remember that affair of the gold ring?”

“Very well.”

“You mentioned this to C–.”

“No. Nor to a living soul since the occurrence of the fact.”

“What?”

“Nothing on that subject has ever passed my lips. I believed that you saw and repented of your error, and in honour and in conscience refrained from even the remotest allusion to the subject.”

“How, then, did Mr. C–become cognisant of the fact?”

“If cognisant all, it was from another source than the one you supposed.”

“I never mentioned it. You were the only one to whom the circumstance was communicated. How, then, could the matter have gotten abroad?”

“I don’t believe a single member of the congregation ever heard of it.”

“Oh, yes, they have. These has been a marked change in the manner of very many towards me. So apparent was this at one time, that I absented myself from church, rather than encounter it.”

“All your imagination, brother Grant, and nothing else. I believe that I mingle as freely with the congregation as any one, and I know that I never heard a breath against you. At present, every one is at a loss to know in what way Mr. C–pointed you out; he is equally in the dark.”

“I was sure he meant me. It was so plain,” said Mr. Grant, his countenance falling, and his manner becoming subdued.

“There was nothing of the kind, you may depend upon it,” replied Mr. Harrison.

“And you never spoke of it?”

“Never!”

“A guilty conscience, it is said, needs no accuser. The likeness to me was so strong, that I really thought the picture was sketched from myself as the original. Ah, me!”

“Had you not better call on Mr. C–?” asked Harrison.

“No, no. See him for me, if you please, and tell him that I am convinced of my error in supposing he pointed me out in the congregation. As to the particular allusion that I felt to be offensive, I hope you will still keep your own counsel. I did wrong, under temptation, and have suffered and repented in consequence. It can do no good to bring the matter to light now.”

“None at all. I will not speak of it.”

Nor did he. Many and various were the suggestions and suppositions of the congregation touching the nature of the preacher’s personal allusion to the jeweller, and some dozen of little gossiping stories got into circulation; but the truth did not find its way to the light. And not until the day on which he was leaving the station for a new field of labour, did the preacher himself understand the matter; and then he had it from Mr. Grant’s own lips.