"After all, what have I to do with it? He comes to see you."
"Yes, dear; but I shan't always be here for him to see. And if I thought that you would help Walter to look after him—will you?"
"I will do what I can. My little one!"
Anne bowed her head over the soft forehead of her little one. She had a glad and solemn vision of herself as the protector of the penitent. It was in keeping with all the sanctities and pieties she cherished. She had not forgotten that Canon Wharton (a saint if ever there was one) had enjoined on her the utmost charity to Mr. Gorst, should he turn from his iniquity.
She was better able to admit the likelihood of that repentance because Mr. Gorst had never stood in any close relation to her. His iniquity had not profoundly affected her. But she found it impossible to realise that Majendie's influence could count for anything in his redemption. Where her husband was concerned Anne's mind was made up, and it refused to acknowledge so fine a merit in so gross a man. She was by this time comfortably fixed in her attitude, and any shock to it caused her positive uneasiness. Her attitude was sacred; it had become one of the pillars of her spiritual life. She was constrained to look for justification lest she should put herself wrong with God.
She considered that she had found it in Majendie's habits, his silences, his moods, the facility of his decline upon the Hannays and the Ransomes. He was determined to deteriorate, to sink to their level.
To-night, when he remarked tentatively that he thought he would dine at the Hannays', she made an effort to stop him.
"Must you go?" said she. "You are always dining with them."
"Why?—do you mind?" said he.
"Well—when it's night after night—"