"You say every one knows about it?" returned Malcolm eagerly.
"Yes, every one in Staplegrove and Earlsfield. Oh, I can read your face; you would like to hear about it. Well, there is no harm in my telling you. When Dinah Templeton was about three-or four-and-twenty she was engaged to Douglas Fraser, a doctor just beginning practice in Earlsfield."
"Mr. Templeton was living at that time, and approved of the engagement. Dr. Eraser was devoted to his profession. He was a rising man, and people predicted that before many years were over he would make his mark."
"Douglas Fraser, the great authority on neurotic diseases in Harley Street!" exclaimed Malcolm in a tone of intense surprise. Mrs. Godfrey nodded.
"As a young man I have been told that he was perfectly irresistible. Even now he is a grand-looking man of commanding presence, with a fine intellectual head and face. And as for Dinah, she must have been one of the sweetest-looking creatures on God's earth."
"Well, they were engaged, and if ever a young pair of human lovers walked in the Garden of Eden, Dinah and Douglas Fraser were that couple—until the cloud came that was to eclipse their happiness in this world. There is no need for me to enter into the matter very fully, though I know everything. One unhappy day Dinah discovered that Dr. Fraser was an agnostic—that for some time he had had grave doubts on the subject of revealed religion, which he had kept to himself for fear of distressing her; but now a sense of honour compelled him to tell her the truth. He had lost his faith, and he no longer believed in anything but science."
"Good heavens, what a shock!" ejaculated Malcolm.
"You may well say so," returned Mrs. Godfrey sadly. "It was no light cross that Dinah had to bear. Even in her youth she was intensely religious. Religion was not a portion of her life, it was her life itself. To such a nature the idea of marrying an agnostic was practically impossible. 'If I marry Douglas I shall be committing a great sin,' she said to her sister; 'I shall be denying my Lord and Master;' and in the semi-delirium in the illness that ensued, Elizabeth could hear her say over and over again, 'Whoso loveth father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.'"
"And she actually gave him up."
"Yes, she gave him up, though it broke her heart and his to do so. I believe that he suffered terribly, and that he used every argument in his power to shake her resolution, but in vain."