“Yes; they can do no more for her,” was the tearful answer, while the woman stood a moment, wrapt in thought or prayer. Then she said: “May I see the doctor?”
“Which one? Two are with her,” Mrs. Stannard said, and the woman replied:
“Both, if you please.”
They came,—Dr. Catherin and Kenneth,—the former looking curiously at the woman, who, very respectfully, and with no cringing in her manner, said to them: “I hear you have done all you can for the young lady,—that you have given her up. Is that so?”
“Yes, madam,” Kenneth answered, wondering who this stranger was intruding thus upon them, but still attracted by the sweetness of her face.
“Then, may I try?” she said. “It is not often that we offer our services, but in this case I feel that I must. May I see her? I am Mrs. Foster, from Boston.”
The deacon had been a silent looker-on up to this point; when he started up, every hair on his head bristling with wrath. He knew now who the woman was. He had heard of her visiting at a neighbor’s, and that she belonged to a sect which he esteemed little better than heathen.
“Ken,” he exclaimed, “Ken, listen to me!” but before Kenneth could reply, Dr. Catherin, who guessed who the woman was, and while not believing in her at all was less prejudiced than the deacon, said in reply to Kenneth’s questioning look at him: “Let her go up. She can do no harm. She is a Scientist.”
“Oh-h!” and Kenneth shuddered. If all medicine had failed, what could she do? Nothing. And still her face pleaded with him until he said, “Come with me,” while his father, completely unstrung, exclaimed: “Ken, Ken, don’t you know it is all a delusion,—a device of the devil,—and right here in my house!”
But Kenneth was half way up the stairs, and did not hear the distracted man, who, not willing to stay where such things were going on, seized his hat, and going out to the steps of the old church, sat there with the feeling that the sanctity of the place would in a measure atone for the enormity of the wickedness being practiced under his roof. And while he sat there his clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Stone, came up from the village on a calling tour. Seeing the deacon, he alighted from his buggy and came and sat down by him, asking how Miss Elliott was.