The service had taken longer than usual.

He stood up before they had all gone and poured out the wine into the chalices.

From where he had been sitting it was impossible to see those sides of the church that formed the cross upon which the foundations had been laid, and so, though only a few people remained in the centre aisle, he felt no cause for uneasiness.
Mr.Windle had been well assured, and he ought to know.
It was when he stood waiting for the communicants to approach the altar and saw all the church empty itself into the chancel like a stream which has been dammed and is set free, that he realized his mistake.
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.