"William Koehler came to me and accused me of stealing the communion service," said he. "There is one rafter too few or too many in his little house."
"There is something very wrong with poor William," said he sorrowfully.
With a firm step John Hartman returned to his house. When it was time for the evening service he went to church as was his custom.
John Hartman's bank account increased steadily; he added field to field and orchard to orchard. His great safe in the dining-room held papers of greater and greater value; his great Swiss barns with their deep forebays and their mammoth haylofts were enlarged; his orchards bent under their weight of fruit. But John Hartman did not say to his soul, "Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." With his soul poor John held a different sort of converse.
Desperately he tried to fix his mind upon his many affairs, so that he might shut out the recollection of William Koehler and the sound of his mad voice. He was afraid for a long time that he, John Hartman, might rise suddenly in church and make rash confession, or that he might point out to his fellow directors in the bank the black-bearded, sharp-eyed face, which he saw looking at him over their shoulders, or that he might shout out upon the street his secret.
Gradually he succeeded in thinking only of his work. The sudden appearance of William Koehler gave him a strange trembling of the limbs and an oppression about the heart, that was all. William made no further accusation for a long time, and encounters could be avoided. Long before William had begun to pray aloud, dropping down in front of the post-office or at a street corner, Millerstown had become certain that he was crazy. His unintelligible prayers betrayed nothing.
But, slowly, as his mind turned itself a little from its own wretchedness, poor Hartman became aware of an enemy in his own household. To his caresses his wife ceased to respond; she had become once more the silent, cold woman of their earliest married life, whom he had chosen because she and the woman who had victimized him were as far apart as the poles in character and disposition. At first poor Hartman thought that she felt his neglect of her during the weeks of his misery; he tried now to be all the more tender and affectionate. If he could only find here a refuge, if he could only lay before her his wretched state! But confession to Cassie was impossible; one had only to look upon her to see that!