The Wildfire Club - The Emma Hardinge Britten Archive

124 XABGABET I!'rFELIX,
Mr. H. as the presence of some unmistakable cause of
internal suffering stamped its e\"idences in premature decay
on other conditions of his organization. As the feeling
of interest connected with the mystery that surrounded
him deepened into sympathy, the preacher's popularity
increased in inverse ratio to the probable duration of his
ministry.
It was at a period, however, when the very oil of life
itself appeared to be nearly expended, and the flame now
flickering in its socket to be almost on the verge of expiration,
that the minister was seen for several successive Sundays
without his veiled attendant. At first the confusion
which this fact occasioned in the minds of the vanous .
congregations among whom he was accustomed to appear,
directed attention from the priest himself; but when the
curious began to scrutinize the effect which this absence
would have upon him, great was their astonishment to
behold the very same phenomena in the conduct of the
preacher which had invariably marked his manner in the
presence of the unknown. There was the same anxious
avoidance of a particular part of different aisles where the
lady had been accustomed, as if seeking the most conspicuous
possible position, to appear - the sudden, abrupt
turning of the head away, which had so often given token
that his eyes had involuntarily encountered a disagreeable
object; nay, as he passed down the aisle to change his
robe previous to the communion service, he was again and
again observed to move aside and even gather it up, as if
to avoid contact with what had once occupied a space now
filled by empty air.
Many months passed away subsequent to the disappear-.
ance of the mysterious lady, without any other change in
Mr. H.'s equally mysterious deportment than an increased