"Exactly what would be done, if the woman played fifty times worse, and looked like a beggar. A medium performer with an ugly visage would not find us stumbling against duty. No respect should be shown to persons, when such a charge is brought up. The facts must be tested, and Miss Edgar—What's the reason she never owned she was a Mrs.?"
"Why, Deane, did you ever hear me address her or speak of her in any other way? I knew she was a married woman."
"Did you know she had a husband living, too?"
"No."
Mr. Muir spoke as if it were beneath him to suppose that use was to be made, to the damage of the woman, of such acknowledgment.
"It don't look well that people in general are ignorant of the fact. I tell you it's suspicious. It strikes me I never heard anybody call her anything but Miss Edgar. Excuse me; of course you knew better."
"Yes, and some beside myself. She told me she was a married woman. But really, Deane, we couldn't expect, especially of a woman who has been living for months, as it seems to me, in absolute retirement, that she should go about making explanations in regard to her private affairs. I have inferred, I confess, that she had in some unfortunate manner terminated her union with her husband; and I have always hoped that her coming here might prove a providential, happy thing,—that somehow she might find her way out of trouble, and resume, what has evidently been broken off, a peaceful and happy life. She is familiar with happiness."
"Well, Sir!" Deane exploded on the preacher's mildness, of which he had grown in the last few seconds terribly impatient, "I don't know how far Christian charity may go,—a great way farther, it seems, than it need to, if it will submit to the impertinence of a traitor's coming among us and accepting our support, at the same time that she takes advantage of her sex and position to betray us. For that business stands just where it did before. There isn't the slightest doubt that she will find abettors enough who are as false and daring and impudent as herself. Whether we shall suffer them is a question, it seems. Excuse my plain speaking, but I am surprised all round."
"No more than I am, Mr. Deane. It is, as you say, our duty immediately to examine into this business; but we cannot, look at it as you will, we cannot do so with too much caution. It is a disagreeable errand for a man to undertake. Let us at least defer judgment for the present. I will speak to Mrs. Edgar about it myself, and communicate the result immediately to you. Do you prefer to remain here till I return?"
He arose as he spoke, but Deane rose also. It had at last penetrated the brain of this most shrewd, but also very dull man, that the business might be conducted with courtesy, and that a little skill might manage it as effectually as a good deal of courage.