"Hold!" cried Mr. Rogers, growing hot in his turn, "you shall not so pervert a pure doctrine. I deny not that the devil often makes women serve his turn, seeing that where they take, their affections are strongest, and he found out a Delilah for Samson and a Jezebel for Ahab. But as when they are bad, they are exceeding bad, so when they are good, they are exceeding good; and as gold will sooner receive the stamp than iron, so are women more readily wrought upon than men, and persuaded into the truth, and oftentimes take the fullest impression of the seal of the Lord, as witness the holy women of old."
"Ay," retorted Mr. Marshman, "the women of old, even as Eve, by whom sin and death did enter into the world! Well, did Hierome say——"
His tirade was interrupted by Harrison, who dashed back into the room with a distracted face.
"She is gone—she is fled!" he gasped.
"So, Brother Marshman, instead of leading the lambs into the sheepfold," cried Rogers, "thou scarest them with shouts into the jaws of the wolf!"
"She is departed from us because she is not of us," answered Marshman, gloomily.
"You are distraught," cried Harrison. "How will you answer it to her father, to the world that you have driven a lady of birth and breeding from your house—to heaven only knows what perils?"
Mr. Rogers had risen from his chair, and now snatched up his hat and walking-cane.
"Take comfort, Dick," he said. "Doubtless Mistress Perrient hath but gone down to the quay. It is the Little Charity, is it not, that her stuff is aboard? I will follow her there and bring you tidings of her safety with all speed. Methinks, Brother Marshman, you also might do worse than to seek for this strayed lamb, seeing it is not all of her own fault that she has wandered forth."
Mr. Marshman had by this time regained his ordinary manner.