There were not more than twenty people, and with his own willing and
ready hands he had consecrated all the wine which he had poured out
into the vessel in the vestry. What was the meaning of it? Why had
Mr. Windle told him sixty, or more, when scarcely twenty attended?
He stood waiting in the vestry afterwards with the well-filled
chalice in his hand, tremulously anticipating Mr. Windle's arrival.
His face was twitching spasmodically. The unseen fingers were busy.
They never left him alone.
"_It shall not be carried out of the church, but the priest and such
others of the communicants as he shall call unto him shall,
immediately after the blessing, reverently eat and drink the same._"
So it alluded in the rubric of the Book of Common Prayer to the leaving
over of consecrated wine. In the mind of the Rev. Samuel, Mr. Windle
was that other communicant.
"What shall I do?" he began, directly the devout warden entered.
Mr. Windle was beaming with good nature. He had just been talking
to a lady--the last to leave the church--who had told him that he
had read the lessons with great feeling; and, while he despised all
emotion as sacrilegious in the precincts of God's house of worship,
he liked to be thought capable of it.
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