He kept his chin down in his collar, but spoke at the ceiling like one blind, though his eyes were sharp enough 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.