"My dear! I never mentioned her name."
"That makes it all the more suspicious. You are constantly thinking of her. Don't deny it. I tell you I know it; and I know your ongoings with her at Coaltown. Mr Murdoch told me. And I know that on the day of your ordination you were waiting for her, in the manse here, to propose to her, when I dropped in, in time to spoil the sport. Ha! ha! you wonder how I found that out. Your mother let the cat out of the bag. And you got a letter from her this morning. I detected the handwriting. If there's nothing wrong, why do you hide it?"
"I did not hide it. I was just going to show it to you. There it is. Read it."
"What? coming here to-day at eleven (starting to her feet); she sha'n't come here. Not so long as I'm here. I'll tell the servant not to let her in."
"I will certainly countermand that order."
"Then I'll go to the door myself and slam it in her face."
"And I will certainly take means to prevent you. Listen to me. I'm speaking quite calmly. That venomous man, Murdoch, who told you about the ongoings of Miss Singleton and myself, is a slanderer. Our whole souls were in our mission work. Every word exchanged between us was about it, and might have been published to the world. She comes here to-day as a servant of God, interested in God's work, and I would be a heartless, graceless coward if I allowed my door to be shut in her face. Now let that be understood. Let that be understood."
Mr Blair sits waiting for a reply. His wife, however, preserves an unusual silence, and sits staring into vacancy with a fixed look. He does not like this, as it is so uncommon with her, and he anticipates a stormy scene. But to his infinite surprise, when the door bell sounds, she does not get up; and when Miss Singleton is ushered in, she rises and shakes hands with her, and goes out of the room saying that she will bring her a cup of tea. And then comes a scene which can never cease to haunt his memory! He feels himself to be in a sort of trance, seeing horrible deeds swiftly done before him, desiring to prevent them, but utterly unable to do so. He and his visitor have scarcely exchanged the usual inquiries regarding health, before he sees his wife enter with a cup. He sees her give it to Miss Singleton; he sees Miss Singleton receive it with a smile; before he can cry out to her, "Don't drink it," he sees her take several sips; he sees her fall back lifeless; he sees his wife throw her arms into the air with a demoniac gesture of delight; and he sees and hears no more.
When he comes to his senses, he is conscious of the presence of several people, and hears Sir Benjamin Brockie's voice, very much broken down and full of tears. This hard, unsympathetic man, generally so replete with narrow opinions, and so stubborn in maintaining them, is, by some strong influence, quite softened. The flinty rock has been touched as if by the prophet's rod, and the pure waters of Christian charity flow forth.
"This excellent woman," he is saying, "has died a martyr. She had heard of Mr Blair's unhappy married life, and she came over expressly to try and put things right. She called upon me to see how the land lay, and she thought that we had been lacking in sympathy towards Mrs Blair. All that we want, she said, to regenerate mankind is enough of sympathy. Sympathy is the great sanitary agent in the moral world. If applied in large enough measure, it will neutralise every evil, and sweeten the social atmosphere. She had great hopes that she would make all right; and I believe that she would have succeeded had she not been so suddenly cut off by the unfortunate woman whom she was trying to save. I don't know how it was, but her own example seemed to be a mirror in which other people saw how defective they were. For my own part, I felt to-day, after seeing her, that I and my family, and the rest of the congregation, had been remiss in our duty towards Mr and Mrs Blair; and I hurried over to lose no time in atoning for my mistake."