The curiosity of people in the street also seemed to abate.  The more respectable class of people are too proud to show interest in the same way that gaping children show it, and most people in this village belonged to the more respectable class.  Those who had come to doors or windows on the street retired from them just as Harkness had done; those out in the street went on their ways, with the exception of two men of the more demonstrative sort, who went and looked down the alley after the stranger, and called out jestingly to some one in it.

Then the old man stopped, and, with his face still upturned, as if blind to everything but pure light, took up his position on one side of the narrow street.  He had only gone some forty paces down it.  A policeman, coming up in front of the hotel, looked on, listening to the jesters.  Then he and they drew a little nearer, the children who had followed stood round, one man appeared at the other end of the alley.  On either side the houses were high and the windows few, but high up in the hotel there was a small window that lighted a linen press, and at that small window, with the door of the closet locked on the inside, Eliza stood unseen, and looked and listened.

The voice of the preacher was loud, unnatural also in its rising and falling, the voice of a deaf man who could not hear his own tones.  His words were not what any one expected.  This was the sermon he preached: 

“In a little while He that shall come will not tarry.  Many shall say to Him in that day, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and He shall say, ’Depart from me; I never knew you.’”

His voice, which had become very vehement, suddenly sank, and he was silent.

“Upon my word, that’s queer,” said one of the men who stood near the policeman.

“He’s staring mad,” said the other man in plain clothes.  “He should be in the asylum.”

This second man went away, but the first speaker and the policeman drew still nearer, and the congregation did not diminish, for the man who left was replaced by the poor woman with the checked shawl over her head who had first followed the preacher up the street, and who now appeared standing listening at a house corner.  She was well known in the village as the wife of a drunkard.

The old man began speaking again in softer voice, but there was the same odd variety of tones which had exciting effect.

“Why do you defraud your brother?  Why do you judge your brother?  Why do you set at nought your brother?  Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these, you do it to Him.”

His voice died away again.  His strong face had become illumined, and he brought down his gaze toward the listeners.

“If any man shall do His will he shall know of the doctrine.  He will know—­yes, know—­for there is no other knowledge as sure as this.”

Then, in such a colloquial way that it almost seemed as if the listeners themselves had asked the question, he said:  “What shall we do that we may work the works of God?”