As usual in such cases, there was very little cool reasoning, and very much passionate declamation.  The first astonishment had given place to conjecture, which yielded in turn to dogmatic judgments—­acquiescing or condemning, as the self-constituted judges happened to be favorable or adverse to the cause of the minister.

When the first Sabbath after the arrest came, and the church was closed because the pulpit was unoccupied, the dispersed congregation, haunted by the vision of the absent pastor in his cell, discussed the matter anew, and differed and disputed, and fell out worse than ever.  Parties formed for and against the minister, and party feuds raged high.

Upon the second Sabbath—­being the day before the county court should sit—­a substitute filled the pulpit of Mr. Willcoxen, and his congregation reassembled to hear an edifying discourse from the text:  “I myself have seen the ungodly in great power, and flourishing like a green bay-tree.  I went by, and lo! he was gone; I sought him, but his place was nowhere to be found.”

This sermon bore rather hard (by pointed allusions) upon the great elevation and sudden downfall of the celebrated minister, and, in consequence, delighted one portion of the audience and enraged the other.  The last-mentioned charged the new preacher with envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness, besides the wish to rise on the ruin of his unfortunate predecessor, and they went home in high indignation, resolved not to set foot within the parish church again until the honorable acquittal of their own beloved pastor should put all his enemies, persecutors and slanderers to shame.

The excitement spread and gained force and fire with space.  The press took it up, and went to war as the people had done.  And as far as the name of Thurston Willcoxen had been wafted by the breath of fame, it was now blown by the “Blatant Beast.”  Ay, and farther, too! for those who had never even heard of his great talents, his learning, his eloquence, his zeal and his charity, were made familiar with his imputed crime and shuddered while they denounced.  And this was natural and well, so far as it went to prove that great excellence is so much less rare than great evil, as to excite less attention.  The news of this signal event spread like wildfire all over the country, from Maine to Louisiana, and from Missouri to Florida, producing everywhere great excitement, but falling in three places with the crushing force of a thunderbolt.

First by Marian’s fireside.

In a private parlor of a quiet hotel, in one of the Eastern cities, sat the lady, now nearly thirty years of age, yet still in the bloom of her womanly beauty.

She had lately arrived from Europe, charged with one of those benevolent missions which it was the business and the consolation of her life to fulfill.

It was late in the afternoon, and the low descending sun threw its golden gleam across the round table at which she sat, busily engaged with reading reports, making notes, and writing letters connected with the affair upon which she had come.