This I said, thinking of no one more than another of my audience. But as I closed my sermon, I could not help fancying that Mrs Oldcastle looked at me with more than her usual fierceness. I forgot all about it, however, for I never seemed to myself to have any hold of, or relation to, that woman. I know I was wrong in being unable to feel my relation to her because I disliked her. But not till years after did I begin to understand how she felt, or recognize in myself a common humanity with her. A sin of my own made me understand her condition. I can hardly explain now; I will tell it when the time comes. When I called upon her next, after the interview last related, she behaved much as if she had forgotten all about it, which was not likely.
In the end of the week after the sermon to which I have alluded, I was passing the Hall-gate on my usual Saturday’s walk, when Judy saw me from within, as she came out of the lodge. She was with me in a moment.
“Mr Walton,” she said, “how could you preach at Grannie as you did last Sunday?”
“I did not preach at anybody, Judy.”
“Oh, Mr Walton!”
“You know I didn’t, Judy. You know that if I had, I would not say I had not.”
“Yes, yes; I know that perfectly,” she said, seriously. “But Grannie thinks you did.”
“How do you know that?”
“By her face.”
“That is all, is it?”