I was glad when Pendlam appeared. He was looking care-worn and toil-worn; his expression had grown more intense than ever. His face lighted up a little at sight of me; but it was some minutes before his mind seemed capable of extricating itself from its abstractions, and meeting me upon social grounds.
"You will excuse me. I am heartily rejoiced to see you. I was hard at work. Just pass your hand over my forehead; it will relieve the pressure upon my brain. My mission is now fully revealed to me; everything is reform, reform. I have been led here step by step. Your magnetism is very soothing. The old crumbling walls of creeds and conventionalities are to be swept away, and their foundations subjected to the plough and the harrow. I am in the harness. I have no motive for concealment; I tell you frankly where I stand," said Pendlam. Another long sigh from Susan. Mrs. D—— tossed her contemptuous chin, and expressed scorn in divers significant ways.
"I should want to conceal a little, if I was in your place," she remarked, cuttingly.
"Truth is truth; it can harm only those who are in error," said Pendlam.
"It certainly hasn't done you a very great amount of good." Another toss of the contemptuous chin.
"On the contrary, it has done me incalculable good," answered the son-in-law, with a smile.
"Oh! you consider it good, then, to be cut off from the church,—to give up a good situation and sure salary,—to lose the respect of everybody whose respect is worth having!"
"If I have done all this for the truth's sake, it is good,"—the reformer's face kindled with enthusiasm,—"and I for one find it good."
"Perhaps you do, but I know who don't. I believe reform, like charity, begins at home. You talk of your duty to humanity; I believe the first duty is to one's own family. I don't think much of that man's mission to the world, who forgets his own wife and child."
Horatio had previously told me, what I could hardly believe, that Mrs. D—— was accustomed to abuse her son-in-law in this way, in the presence of strangers. Susan did nothing but sigh. Pendlam smiled, as if he was used to it.