"Is she mad?" said Mrs. Vincent, alarmed, yet relieved. "Don't go away, Arthur; she is not here. She said I was to tell you that she had gone back--to Alice. Who is Alice?--who is this woman? What have you to do with her? Oh! my dear boy, you are a minister, and the world is so ready to make remarks. She said you had her word. Oh, Arthur, I hope it does not mean anything you will live to repent?" cried the anxious mother, fixing her jealous eyes on her son's face. "She is not like you. I cannot tell what you can have to do with such a woman--you who might----" Mrs. Vincent's fright and anxiety exhausted both her language and her breath. "It does not matter much after all," said the Nonconformist, who had been busy with his own thoughts, and had only half heard his mother's adjurations. "Like me?--what has that to do with the matter? But I daresay she will go back, as she said; and now that he is out of danger, and has not accused her, things must take their chance. Mad? It would not be wonderful if she were mad. I can sympathise with people when they are driven out of their wits. Who is this next? Another messenger from the meeting, or perhaps your deputation? I think I shall go mad after a while if I get no rest." But as the minister stood in ill-concealed excitement by the fire, not without expectation that it might be somebody with an official report from Salem, Mr. Vincent's landlady, still in her bonnet and shawl, just returned from the meeting, came in to tell the widow of the approach of the doctor. "He's a-coming directly, ma'am; he's gone in for a minute to Smith's, next door, where they've got the hooping-cough. And oh, Mr. Vincent, sir," cried the woman, who had made this a pretence to express her sentiments on the more important subject, "if there hasn't a-been a sweet meeting! I'd have giv' a half-year's rent, ma'am, the pastor had been there. All as unanimous and as friendly!--all but them Pigeons, as are the poison of the place; and sweet Miss Phoebe Tozer a-crying of her pretty eyes out; but there ain't no occasion for crying now," said the triumphant landlady, who had a real stake in the matter. At this touch the minister regained his composure. He went back to his seat at the table, and took up the pen he had thrown down. A bishop could not have looked more grandly indifferent than did the Nonconformist as he turned his back upon his anxious partisan. "Tell the doctor to let me know how Susan is, mother, for I am busy to-night," said the young man. "I cannot leave my work just now even for Dr. Rider." He began again to write in the excitement of his mind, and produced a sentence which was not one of the least successful of his sentences, while the two women with a certain awe stood silent behind his chair.