When Malcolm Blair was reading this letter, he felt like a criminal receiving sentence of death. Had anyone else than Miss Singleton offered this opinion, he would have spurned it. But she was his guardian angel, one who, in his belief, had never erred, and could never err. Besides, if he did what she considered a dishonourable action, he would forfeit her approval; and that was all the world to him. He therefore felt himself bound to follow her advice, although he broke his heart in doing it. He even forced himself to take up her sanguine view of the future, and hoped that by kind and sympathetic treatment, he would succeed in making Grace Bourhill into a useful minister's wife.
Four years have elapsed—four momentous years. Mr and Mrs Blair are seated at breakfast. He is wan and wasted, and stoops over his cup and plate as he drinks his weak tea and eats his thin toast. She is stout, red, and restless-eyed. A pervading air of discomfort is given to the room by the dirty discoloured tablecloth, the disarranged furniture, and the careless dress of the two occupants. The following is the conversation which passes between them.
"There!" says she, tossing to her husband a letter which she has just opened and glanced over, "there's Goodsir's, the grocer's account."
"Good heavens!" replied he, staring at it and turning pale.
"Don't swear."
"Sixty-four pounds seventeen and eightpence! and of that, thirty pounds odd for wine! We must really do with less wine."
"You say we, meaning that I have consumed most of it. You grudge me the glass of port which the doctor ordered."
"My dear! have I not often pressed you to take it?"
"You forget the wine you give away to your paupers."