"Lady, I helped to save you from the deep. I surrendered to you the sacred wine after it had touched the lips of the man who stands highest in our land. I have given you shelter in my dwelling, and placed you at the same table with my daughter and my niece; yet so far as your worldly life is concerned, I know you not, neither your outgoing nor your incoming. What could I answer to the Lord, were he to say to me, 'Samuel Parris, who is the woman with whom you have broken bread, and shared the same roof?' I could but reply, 'Lord, I know not--for good or for evil she was cast upon my care, like a drift of sea-weed from the great deep--without a history--without a friend!'" "And in so much your answer would prove correct. Be satisfied, kind old man, that you have done a Christian duty, for which the poor woman you saved will not prove ungrateful." The minister shook his head, muttering to himself, "The arch enemy is most potent when he speaks in a sweet voice, and takes on himself the meekness of an angel." Barbara only heard a word or two of this low speech, but she saw that the old man was troubled, and a mournful smile came to her lips. "You are weary of me, I have become a burden in your house; do not fear to say this." "Not a burden, lady, but a mystery--not an unwelcome guest, but one around whom tears and discord centre, like storm clouds over the sky. Lady, in the name of God, I ask, who are you, and for what purpose do you sojourn among us?" Barbara Stafford arose, pressed both hands to her eyes for a moment, and answered--ah, so sadly-- "I am nothing but a lone, lone woman, Samuel Parris, a sorrowful woman whose way of life lies through the ashes of dead hopes. I am a woman to whom love is a forbidden blessing. This is your first answer. As for my object in coming among you, it is not accomplished, but dead. A few weeks and I shall pass away. The sea, which would not mercifully overwhelm me, spreads its waters between us and the land where my grave will be dug. Let me rest in peace, old man, till a ship sails for some British port: then I will trouble no one longer." "Then she will trouble no one longer," muttered Parris, writing with his stick upon the ground. "God teach me how to deal with this beautiful demon, if such she is: her words disturb my soul with compassion against its will."