It seemed as if he had waited till they were
gone, so that he could not be urged to visit them. At first the
minister scolded him a little for his neglect; but Lemuel said he
had heard about them, and knew they were getting along all right. He
looked as if he had not been getting along very well himself; his
face was thin, and had an air at once dogged and apprehensive. He
abruptly left talking of Evans, and said, "I don't know as you heard
what happened that night before the fire just after I got back from
your house?"
"No, I hadn't."
Lemuel stopped. Then he related briefly and cleanly the whole
affair, Sewell interrupting him from time to time with murmurs of
sympathy, and "Tchk, tchk, tchk!" and "Shocking, shocking!" At the
end he said, "I had hoped somehow that the general calamity had
swallowed up your particular trouble in it. Though I don't know that
general calamities ever do that with particular troubles," he added,
more to himself than to Lemuel; and he put the idea away for some
future sermon.
"Mr. Evans stopped and said something to me that night. He said we
had to live things down, and not die them down; he wanted I should
wait till Saturday before I was sure that I couldn't get through
Tuesday. He said, How did we know that death was the end of
trouble?"
"Yes," said the minister, with a smile of fondness for his friend;
"that was like Evans all over.
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