on occasion.
His name was Meacham.

"It is meet there shall be time for sorrow and repentance," he said.
"This, I pray you all, be our will: that for three months David live
apart, even in the hut where lived the drunken chair-maker ere he
disappeared and died, as rumour saith--it hath no tenant. Let it be that
after to-morrow night at sunset none shall speak to him till that time
be come, the first day of winter. Till that day he shall speak to no
man, and shall be despised of the world, and--pray God--of himself. Upon
the first day of winter let it be that he come hither again and speak
with us."

On the long stillness of assent that followed there came a voice across
the room, from within a grey-and-white bonnet, which shadowed a delicate
face shining with the flame of the spirit within. It was the face of
Faith Claridge, the sister of the woman in the graveyard, whose soul
was "with the Lord," though she was but one year older and looked much
younger than her nephew, David.

"Speak, David," she said softly. "Speak now. Doth not the spirit move
thee?"

She gave him his cue, for he had of purpose held his peace till all had
been said; and he had come to say some things which had been churning
in his mind too long. He caught the faint cool sarcasm in her tone, and
smiled unconsciously at her last words. She, at least, must have reasons
for her faith in him, must have grounds for his defence in painful days
to come; for painful they must be, whether he stayed to do their
will, or went into the fighting world where Quakers were few and life
composite of things they never knew in Hamley.

He got to his feet and clasped his hands behind his back. After an
instant he broke silence.

"All those things of which I am accused, I did; and for them is asked
repentance. Before that day on which I did these things was there
complaint, or cause for it? Was my life evil? Did I think in secret that
which might not be done openly? Well, some things I did secretly. Ye
shall hear of them. I read where I might, and after my taste, many
plays, and found in them beauty and the soul of deep things. Tales
I have read, but a few, and John Milton, and Chaucer, and Bacon, and
Montaigne, and Arab poets also, whose books my uncle sent me. Was this
sin in me?"

"It drove to a day of shame for thee," said the shrill Elder.

He took no heed, but continued: "When I was a child I listened to the
lark as it rose from the meadow; and I hid mys