Mrs. Buchanan was busy with her napery at some distance from the study. She had heard the visitor come in, and had concluded within herself that her poor husband would have an ill time of it with that woman. “But there’s something more on her mind than that pickle siller,” the minister’s wife had said to herself, shaking her head over the darns in her napery. She had long been a student of the troubled faces that came to the minister for advice or consolation, and, having only that evidence to go upon, had formed many a conclusion that turned out true enough, sometimes more true than those which, with a more extended knowledge, from the very lips of the penitents, had been formed by the minister himself: for the face, as Mrs. Buchanan held, could not make excuses, or explain things away, but just showed what was. She was pondering over this case, half-sorry and, perhaps, half-amused that her husband should have this tangled skein to wind, which he never should have meddled with, so that it was partly his own fault—when the sound of those shrieks made her start. They were far too loud and too terrible to ignore. Mrs. Buchanan threw down the linen she was darning, seized a bottle of water from the table, and flew to her husband’s room. Already there were two maids on the stairs hurrying towards the scene of the commotion, to one of whom she gave a quick order, sending the other away.
“Thank God that you’ve come,” said Mr. Buchanan, who was feebly endeavouring to drag the unfortunate woman to her feet again.
“Oh, go away, go away, Claude, you’re of no use here. Send in the doctor if you see him, he will be more use than you.”
“I’ll do that,” cried the minister, relieved. He was too thankful to resign the patient into hands more skilful than his own.
CHAPTER XX.
CONFESSION.
“Then it is just debt and nothing worse,” Mrs. Buchanan said. There was a slight air of disappointment in her face; not that she wished the woman to be more guilty, but that this was scarcely an adequate cause for all the dramatic excitement which had been caused in her own mind by Mrs. Mowbray’s visits and the trouble in her face.
“Nothing worse! what is there that is worse?” cried the minister, turning round upon her. He had been walking up and down the study, that study which had been made a purgatory to him by the money of which she spoke so lightly. It was this that was uppermost in his mind now, and not the poor woman who had thrown herself on his mercy. To tell the truth, he had but little toleration for her. She had thrown away her son’s substance in vanity, and to please herself: but what pleasure had he, the minister, had out of that three hundred pounds? Nothing! It would have been better for him a thousand times to have toiled for it in the sweat of his brow, to have lived on bread and water, and cleared it off honestly. But he had not been allowed to do this; he had been forced into the position he now held, a defaulter as she had said—an unjust steward according to the formula more familiar to his mind.
“Oh, yes, Claude, there are worse things—at least to a woman. She might have misbe—— We’ll not speak of that. Poor thing, she is bad enough, and sore shaken. We will leave her quiet till the laddies come home to their lunch; as likely as not Rodie will bring Frank home with him, as I hear they are playing together: and then he must just be told she had a faint. There are some women that are always fainting; it is just the sort of thing that the like of her would do. If I were you, I would see Mr. Morrison and try what could be done to keep it all quiet. I am not fond of exposing a silly woman to her own son.”
“Better to her son than to strangers, surely—and to the whole world.”
“I am not so sure of that,” Mrs. Buchanan said, thoughtfully: but she did not pursue the argument. She sat very still in the chair which so short a time before had been occupied by poor Mrs. Mowbray in her passion and despair: while her husband walked about the room with his hands thrust into his pockets, and his shoulders up to his ears, full of restless and unquiet thoughts.