The woman turned cold and blank at the suggestion.
“If I did that,” continued the parson, “the coroner who sat on you would pronounce that you had been murdered by me. I should be sent to the assizes, and should infallibly be hung. Very well: there are other kinds of murder than killing the body. There is the killing of the noble, divine nature in man, and that not by acts of violence only, but by denial of what is essential to its existence. Remember this, Mrs. Pepperill: what the atmosphere is to the lungs, that love is to the heart. God created the lungs to be inflated with air, and the heart to be filled with Love.”
CHAPTER IX
CONVALESCENCE
The voice of Pasco was heard shouting up the stairs to his wife. Mrs. Pepperill, glad to escape the lecture, went to the door and called down, “Don’t make such a noise, when the girl is ill.”
“Come, will you, Zerah; there’s some one wants to have a say with you.”
With a curt excuse to the parson, Mrs. Pepperill descended. She found her husband at the foot of the stairs, with his hand on the banister.
“Pasco,” said she, “what do’y think now? The parson has been accusing me of murdering Kate. If she dies, he says he’ll have me up to Exeter Assizes and hung for it. I’ll never set foot in church again, never--I’ll join the Primitive Methodists.”
“As you please,” said her husband. “But go to the door at once. There is John Pooke waiting, and won’t be satisfied till he has had a talk with you about Kate. He wants to know all about Kitty--how she’s doing, whether she’s in danger, if she wants anything that the Pookes can supply. He’s hanging about the door like what they call a morbid fly. He’s in a terrible taking, and won’t be put off with what I can tell.”
“Well, now,” exclaimed Zerah, “here’s an idea! Something may come of that night on a mud-bank after all, and more than she deserves. Oh my! if my Wilmot was alive, and Jan Pooke were to inquire after her! Go up, Pasco, and send that parson away. I won’t speak to him again--abusing of me and calling me names shameful, and he an ordained minister. What in the world are we coming to?”
When the doctor arrived, he pronounced that he would pull Kate through.