There was a long pause, Mr. Warden neither lifting his head nor opening his mouth. His pale face flushed a little, and his lips quivered. David Chantrey was his dearest friend, and an almost intolerable sense of shame and dread kept him silent. His wife, of whom he always spoke so tenderly in all his letters to him! The very spot where he was listening to this charge against her, David's vestry, seemed to deepen the shame of it, and the unutterable sorrow, if it should be true. "What would you counsel me to do?" asked Mrs. Bolton, after a time. "Must I write to my nephew and tell him?" "Do!" he cried, with sudden eagerness and emphasis; "do! Take the temptation out of her way at once. Let everything of the kind be removed from the house. Let no one touch it, or mention it in her presence. Guard her as you would guard a child from taking deadly poison." "Impossible!" exclaimed Mrs. Bolton. "Have no wine in my house? You forget my station and its duties, Mr. Warden, I must give dinner parties occasionally; I must allow beer to my servants. It is absurd. Nobody could expect me to take such a step as that." "Listen to me," he said, earnestly, and with an authority quite at variance with his ordinary shyness. "I do not venture to hope for any other remedy. I have known men, ay, and women, who have not dared to pass close by the doors of a tavern for fear lest they should catch but the smell of it, and become brutes again in spite of themselves. Others have not dared even to think of it. If Mrs. Chantrey be falling into this sin, there is no other course for you to pursue than to banish it from your table, and, if possible, from your house. It is better for her to die, if needs be, than to live a drunkard." "A drunkard!" echoed Mrs. Bolton. "I am sure I never used such a word about Sophy. I cannot believe it possible that my nephew's wife, a clergyman's wife, could become a drunkard, like a woman of the lowest classes! And I cannot understand how you, a clergyman, could seriously propose so extraordinary a step. Why, there is no danger to me; nobody could ever suspect me of being fond of wine. I have taken it in moderation all my life, and I cannot believe it is my duty to give it up altogether at my age." "Very possibly it has never been your duty before," answered Mr. Warden, "and now I urge it, not for your own sake, but for hers. She has fallen into the snare blindfolded, and you can extricate her, though at some cost to yourself. I feel persuaded you can induce her to abstain, if you will do so yourself. You call yourself a Christian--" "I should think there can be no doubt about that," she interrupted, indignantly; "the archdeacon never expressed any doubt about it, and surely I may depend upon his judgment." "Forgive me," said Mr. Warden. "I ought to have said you are a Christian, and a Christian is one who follows his Lord's example." "Who drank wine himself, and blessed it," interposed Mrs. Bolton, in a tone of triumph.