“The Domine does not know everything. Have the men who bought it paid you yet?”
“The publishers? Yes, they paid upon acceptance.”
“How did you learn to write?”
“I never learned. I just wanted to write, and I wrote—something in me wrote. My writing is neither here nor there. Go to your old room, and lie down and sleep. The Domine may think it best for you to go somewhere at once.”
So Neil went to his room but he could not sleep, and about four o’clock the Domine called for him. They met very coldly. The Domine had long ago lost all interest in him as a scholar, and he resented the way in which Neil had quietly shuffled off his family, as soon as he supposed he had socially outgrown them. The young man was terribly humiliated by the necessity of appearing in his dirty, beggarly raiment, and the Domine looked at him with a pitying dislike. The physical uncleanliness of Neil was repellent to the spotless purity which was a strong note in the minister’s personality. However, he thought of the father and mother of Neil, and the look of aching entreaty in poor Christine’s face quite conquered his revulsion, and he said, not unkindly, “I am sorry to see you in such a sad case, Neil. You will find all you need in that parcel; go and dress yourself, and then I shall be waiting for you.” He then turned quickly to Christine, and 331 Neil found himself unable to offer any excuse for his appearance.
“Poor Neil!” sighed Christine.
“Yes, indeed, poor Neil,” answered the Domine. “What can man do for a fellow creature, who is incapable of being true, and hardly capable of being false?”
“I advised him to go to his wife. He says she loved him once, but turned against him at her brother’s request.”
“She did, and a wife who cries out has everyone’s sympathy.”