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the assembly to see. Here was something even Maeve had not set eyes on before, and she squinted at it in puzzlement. It looked like a cross of some kind, but not, she could see, one that any Christian would wear.
    She approached her father's side and whispered, "What is it, Papa?"
    "It was a gift... " he replied...... from Mr. Buddenbaum."
    One of the women, Marsha Winthrop, who was one of the few who had ever shown anything approaching kindness to Maeve, now stepped from the knot of spectators to take a closer look at Goodhue's find. She was a large woman with a sharp tongue, and when she spoke, the throng ceased muttering a moment.
    "Looks like a piece of jewelry to me," she said, turning to Harmon. "was it your wife's?"
    Maeve would often wonder in times to come what had possessed her father at that moment; whether it was stubbornness or perversity that kept him from telling a painless lie. Whichever it was, he refused the ease of deception. "No," he said. "It did not belong to my wife."
    "What is it then?" Goodhue wanted to know.
    The answer came not from Harmon's lips but from the crowd.
    "One of the Devil's signs," said a strident voice.
    Heads turned, and smiles disappeared as Enoch Whitney emerged from the back of the crowd. He was not a man of the cloth, but he was by his own description the most Godfearing among them; a soul commanded by the Lord to watch over his fellows and remind them constantly of how the Enemy moved and worked his works in their midst. It was a painful task, and he seldom let an opportunity slip by to remind his charges how much he suffered for their impurities. But the responsibility lay with him to castigate in public forum any who strayed from the commandments in deed, word, or intention-the lecher, of course, the adulterer, the cheat. And tonight, the worshipper of godless things. He strode in front of the erring father and daughter now, bristling with denunciations. He was a tall, narrow man, with eyes too busy about their duty ever to settle on anything for more than a moment.
    "You have always carried yourself like a guilty man, O'Connell," he said, his gaze going from the accused, to Maeve, to the object in Goodhue's fingers. "But I could never get to the root of your guilt. Now I see it." He extended, his hand. Goodhue dropped the cross into it, and retreated. "I'm guilty of nothing," Hannon said.
    "This is nothing?" Whitney said, his volume rising. He had a powerful voice, which he never tired of exercising.
    "This is nothing?"
    "I said I was guilty of-"
    "Tell me, O'Connell, what service did you do the Devil, that he rewarded you with this unholy thing?" There were gasps among the assembly. to speak of the Evil One so openly was rare; they kept such talk to whispers, for fear that it drew the attention of its subject. Whitney had no such anxieties. He spoke of the Devil with something close to appetite.
    :'I did no service," Harmon replied.
    "Then it was a gift."
    "Yes." More gasps. "But not from the Devil."
    "This is Satan's work!" Whitney bellowed.
    "It is not!" Harmon yelled back at him. "I have no dealings with the Devil. It's you who talk about Hell all the time, Whitney! It's you who sees the Devil in every corner! I don't believe the Devil cares much about us. I think he's off somewhere fancy@'
    "The Devil's everywhere!" Whitney replied. "Waiting for us to make a mistake and fall." This was not directed at Harmon, but at the assembly, which had thinned somewhat since Whitney's appearance.
    "There's no place, even to the wildernesses of the world, where his eyes are not upon us."
    "You speak of the Devil the way true Christians speak of God Almighty," Harmon observed. "I wonder sometimes where your allegiances lie!"
    The response threw Whitney into a frenzy. "How dare you question my righteousness," he foamed, "when I have proof, proof here in my hand, of your unholy dealings!" He turned to address the crowd. "We must not suffer this man in our midst!" he said. "He'll bring