"Oh," sighed Deb, relieved that it was not Mary who had been the reviver; "then it's no business of ours, thank goodness."
"Pardon me—it is very much our business," he urged weightily. "I grieve to tell you that it is your sister, Mrs Ewing, who is implicated in the affair. Do you mean to say that you know nothing about it?"
Deb knew something, and so she put the question by.
"I don't encourage scandalmongers. Mrs Ewing is young and thoughtless—and pretty—which naturally lays her open to ill—natured gossip." "My informant is one of the least ill-natured of women; she is a person of the highest principle."
"Ah, those high-principled women—I know them!"
Mr Goldsworthy was nonplussed for the moment. He could not accept the suggestion that Deb was not high-principled. But he gave up his informant.
"There is ample evidence that the man is Mrs Ewing's lover," he grieved. "He has been seen with her in the most equivocal situations. I don't wish to go into details—to mention things unfit for a young girl's ears—"
"I hope not," put in Deb, her patience giving out. "I am not fond of that kind of talk. I should not believe, either, in any nasty tales connected with my sister, or with Captain Carey. And you ought not to listen to them, for Mary's sake. You should not pander to your high-principled ladies. You should tell them to be more charitable, and to mind their own business."
A year ago the parson would have taken umbrage at this rebuke; he now hastened to deprecate displeasure on the part of the one whom, of all the world, he most desired to please.
"Far be it from me to speak ill of anyone belonging to you," he declared solemnly; but still he could not help it.