"But Helen has been confirmed," said Mrs. Dale, in a bewildered way; "what more does he want?"
"He wants her to be converted, I tell you," cried her brother, "and he's bound to bring it about! He uses the illustration of giving medicine to a sick child to insure its recovery, no matter at what cost of pain to the child or the giver."
"But isn't it the same thing?" persisted Mrs. Dale: "converted—confirmed? We don't use such expressions in the Church, but it is the same thing."
"'Experience a change of heart,' Ward says in his letter; 'be convicted of the sin of unbelief'!" the rector said contemptuously, and ignoring his sister's question; "but conversion with him merely means a belief in hell, so far as I can make out."
"Well, of course Helen is all wrong not to believe in hell," said Mrs. Dale promptly; "the Prayer-Book teaches it, and she must. I'll tell her so. All you have to do is to see this Mr. Ward and tell him she will; and just explain to him that she has been confirmed,—we don't use those Methodistical expressions in the Church. Perhaps the sect he belongs to does, but one always thinks of them as rather belonging to the lower classes, you know. I suppose we ought not to expect anything else from such a person,—who ever heard of his people? I always said the marriage would turn out badly," she added triumphantly. "You remember, I told you so?"
The rector sighed. After all, Mrs. Dale did not help him. It was useless to try to impress her with the theological side of the matter, as she only returned with fresh vigor to the charge that it was a disgrace to the family. So he rose to go, saying, "Well, I'll wait for Ward's letter, and if he persists in this insanity I'll start for Lockhaven. You might see Helen, and see what you can do."
As Mrs. Dale began in her positive way to say how he ought to talk to "this man," Mr. Dale came in.
"I thought I heard your voice," he said to his brother-in-law, "and I came up"—he looked deprecatingly at his wife—"to ask you to step down and have a pipe. I want to speak to you about Denner's books."
But before Dr. Howe could answer, Mrs. Dale poured forth all the troublesome and disgraceful story of the "separated husband and wife." Mr. Dale listened intently; once he flourished his red handkerchief across his eyes as he blew his nose. When he did this, he scattered some loose tobacco about, and Mrs. Dale stopped to reprimand him. "I tell you," she ended emphatically, "it is this new-fangled talk of woman's rights that has done all this. What need has Helen of opinions of her own? A woman ought to be guided by her husband in everything!"
"You see it is pretty bad, Henry," said the rector.