so Harkness, who had no
desire to identify himself too publicly with his strange _protege_, was
forced to leave to the curiosity of others the observation of his
movements.

The curiosity of people in the street also seemed to abate. The more
respectable class of people are too proud to show interest in the same
way that gaping children show it, and most people in this village
belonged to the more respectable class. Those who had come to doors or
windows on the street retired from them just as Harkness had done; those
out in the street went on their ways, with the exception of two men of
the more demonstrative sort, who went and looked down the alley after
the stranger, and called out jestingly to some one in it.

Then the old man stopped, and, with his face still upturned, as if blind
to everything but pure light, took up his position on one side of the
narrow street. He had only gone some forty paces down it. A policeman,
coming up in front of the hotel, looked on, listening to the jesters.
Then he and they drew a little nearer, the children who had followed
stood round, one man appeared at the other end of the alley. On either
side the houses were high and the windows few, but high up in the hotel
there was a small window that lighted a linen press, and at that small
window, with the door of the closet locked on the inside, Eliza stood
unseen, and looked and listened.

The voice of the preacher was loud, unnatural also in its rising and
falling, the voice of a deaf man who could not hear his own tones. His
words were not what any one expected. This was the sermon he preached:

"In a little while He that shall come will not tarry. Many shall say to
Him in that day, 'Lord, Lord,' and He shall say, 'Depart from me; I
never knew you.'"

His voice, which had become very vehement, suddenly sank, and he was
silent.

"Upon my word, that's queer," said one of the men who stood near the
policeman.

"He's staring mad," said the other man in plain clothes. "He should be
in the asylum."

This second man went away, but the first speaker and the policeman drew
still nearer, and the congregation did not diminish, for the man who
left was replaced by the poor woman with the checked shawl over her head
who had first followed the preacher up the street, and who now appeared
standing listening at a house corner. She was well known in the village
as the wife of a drunkard.

The old man began speaking again in softer voice, bu