as was
never heard before within those old gray walls.

VIII.

Mr. Muir was but a man. Powerful indeed in his way, but it was behind
his pulpit-desk, with a sermon in his hands, his congregation before
him,--or in carrying out any charitable project, or in managing the
business specially devolving on him. He was nobody when he emerged from
his own distinct path,--at least, such was his opinion; and being so, he
would not be likely to attempt the enforcement of another view of his
power on other men. He was afraid of himself now,--afraid that his own
preferences had made him obtuse where loyalty would have given him a
clearer vision.

Pity him, therefore, when Mr. Deane learned that the son of bondage in
whose deliverance he took such proud delight, as surely became a good
man who greatly valued freedom, aye, valued it as the pearl beyond all
price,--when he learned that the slave had been seen going to the
organist's room, and returning from it, and had not since been seen in
H----.

Mr. Muir reflected on these tidings with perplexity, constrained, in
spite of him, to believe that the slave had actually come on a secret
errand, which he had fulfilled, and that not without enlightenment he
had returned to his master.

The indignation a man feels, a man of the Deane order especially, when
he finds that he has been imposed upon, though the deception has been in
this instance of his own furtherance and establishment,--this kind and
degree of indignation brought Mr. Deane like a firebrand into the next
vestry-meeting. An end must be made of this matter at once. It was no
longer a question whether anything had best be done. Something _must_ be
done; the public demanded, and he, as a good citizen, demanded, that the
church should free herself of suspicion.

Mr. Muir felt, from the moment his eyes fell on Deane, that _he_ played
a losing game. Vain to help a woman who had fallen under that man's
suspicion, useless to defend her! What should he do, then? Let her go?
let her fall? Allow that she was a spy? Permit her disgrace, dismissal,
arrest possibly? When War takes hold of women, the touch is not tender.
Mr. Muir, it was obvious, was not a man of war. And he had to
acknowledge to the Musical Committee, that, as to the result of his
conversation with Mrs. Edgar, he had learned merely what was sufficient,
indeed, to satisfy _him_ of her loyalty, and that she would scorn to do
a spy's work; but he had no proof to offe