“How did she die? It must have been very sudden. Tell me, for pity’s sake!”
“Calm yourself, reverend sir. Ah! you must have a tender disposition to feel another’s loss so much. You could not feel it more deeply, if you had lost a person very dear to you—a wife of your own bosom, so to speak.”
“I—I esteemed the lady,” stammered the clergyman, shrinking before the others cold, scrutinizing gaze. “She was so good, so noble!”
“Ah! was she not? But you asked me how she died? I think it was some obscure affection of the heart. She was always so emotional, so impulsive; and latterly, I fear, she was under great excitement. You will be grieved to hear she passed away in bitter mental pain.”
Santley started. Haldane continued, in the same cold voice, always keeping his eyes fixed steadily on those of the clergyman.
“There was something on her mind—some load, some trouble, some cruel self-reproach. I gathered from her fragmentary words that she was unhappy, that she sought my forgiveness for some fault of which she considered herself guilty. Whatever that fault was, it preyed upon her life, and hastened her end.”
“Why did not you send for me? It is horrible to think she died without the last offices of religion. I would have comforted her, prayed with her; I——-”
He paused in confusion, shrinking before the other’s steady gaze.
“There was no time,” answered Haldane; “and besides, to be honest, I did not care to have a clergyman.”
“It was not an outrage!” cried Santley. “It was blasphemous!”