It is a hard task to fight a woman in the presence of her husband, who is at the same time one's friend. The Doctor thought, "Would the woman have me offer premiums on hypocrisy as she does?" but he did not say so, because there was poor John Stanburne at the other end of the hearth-rug in a state of much uncomfortableness. So the Doctor said nothing at all, and the silence became perfectly distressing. Lady Helena had a way of her own out of the difficulty. Though it was an hour earlier than the usual time for prayers, she rang the bell and ordered all the servants in. When they were kneeling, each before his chair, her ladyship read the prayers herself, and accentuated with a certain severity a paragraph in which she thanked God that she was not as unbelievers, who were destined to perish everlastingly. It was a satisfaction to Lady Helena to have the Doctor there down upon his knees, with no means of escape from the expression of spiritual superiority.
CHAPTER IX.
THE FUGITIVE.
"I say, Doctor," said John Stanburne, when her ladyship was fairly out of hearing, and half-way in her ascent of the great staircase—"I say, Doctor, I hope you don't mind what Helena says about you not being—you know some women are so—indeed I do believe all women are so. They seem laudably anxious to keep us all in the right path, but perhaps they're just a little too anxious."
The Doctor said he believed Lady Helena meant to do right, but—and then he hesitated.
"But you don't see the sense of bribing poor people into sham piety with blankets."
"Well, no, I don't."
"Neither do I, Doctor. There's a Roman Catholic family about three miles off, and the lady there gives premiums on going to mass, and still higher premiums on confession. She has won a great many converts; and there's a strong antagonism between her and Helena—a most expensive warfare it is too, I assure you, this warfare for souls. However, it's an ill wind that blows nobody good, and the poor profit by it, which is a consolation, only it makes them sneaks—it makes them sneaks and hypocrites. Doctor, come into my study, will you, and let's have a weed?"