"It's wrong, and he knows it, and she ought to know it, too. Sabina, I mean. I should have given her credit for more sense myself. I thought she had plenty of self-respect and brains too."
"Things are coming to a crisis in that quarter," prophesied Ernest. "It is a quality of love that it doesn't stand still, John; and something is going to happen very shortly. Either it will be given out that they are betrothed, or else the thing will fade away. Sabina has very fine instincts; and on his side, he would, I am sure, do nothing unbecoming his family."
"He has—plenty," declared Mr. Best.
"Nothing about which there would not be two opinions, believe me. The fact that he has let it go so far makes me think they are engaged. The young will go their own way about things."
"If it was all right, Sabina Dinnett wouldn't be so miserable," argued John Best. "She was used to be as cheerful as a bird on a bough; and now she is not."
"Merely showing that the climax is at hand. I have seen myself lately that Sabina was unhappy and even taxed her with it; but she denied it. Her mother, however, knows that she is a good deal perturbed. We must hope for the best."
"And what is the best?" asked John.
"There is not the slightest difficulty about that; the best is what will happen," replied Mr. Churchouse. "As a good Christian you know it perfectly well."
But the other shook his head.
"That won't do," he answered, "that's only evasion, Mister Ernest. There's lots and lots of things happen, and the better the Christian you are, the better you know they ought not to happen. And whether they are engaged to be married, or whether they quarrel, trouble must come of it. If people do wrong, it's no good for Christians to say the issue must be right. That's simply weak-minded. You might as well argue nothing wrong ever does happen, since nothing can happen without the will of God."