The vicar dissented forcibly. “There can be no possible excuse for him. It was a most improper remark for any man to make in such circumstances, and you were quite right to feel as you did about it. But if you are wise you will now put it out of your mind; at the same time I should like you to give up the practice of distributing feathers.” “Yes, father, I will,” said Edith with a quick flush. “You will be wise. I am arranging for an inquiry to be made into the man’s mental condition.” “Is that absolutely necessary?” The flush grew deeper. “The public interest calls for it. This incident is a climax of many.” “Yet somehow he doesn’t seem exactly insane.” “Not even when he talks in that way?” said the vicar surprisedly. “My dear girl, it is the only charitable explanation.” “Do you really think so?” said the reluctant Edith. “Demonstrably.” “And yet somehow, when one really thinks about him, he seems so sweetly reasonable.” “Sweetly reasonable!” The vicar pinned down the unfortunate phrase. “How can you say that? A mild and harmless creature, perhaps--apart from his opinions--but reasonable!--surely that is the very last word to apply to him.” Perplexity deepened upon Edith’s face. “Somehow, I can’t throw off the curious impression he has left upon me.” “Try to forget the man.” The vicar spoke sternly. “Dismiss him from your thoughts, at any rate while the case is _sub judice_. You have done your duty by reporting the matter to me, and I am doing mine by putting in motion proper machinery to deal with it.” “I sincerely hope that nothing is going to happen to him.” “He will be sent to an asylum.” Edith shivered. “Oh, I hope not,” she said, drawing in her breath sharply. “To my mind that is the cruellest fate that can overtake any human being.” “One doesn’t altogether agree,” said the vicar. “He will be taken care of as he ought to be, and treated, of course, with the greatest humanity. You must remember that asylums are very different places from what they were sixty years ago, when Dickens--I think it was Dickens--wrote about them.” “But it must mean dreadful suffering to be held for the rest of one’s life within four walls among lunatics without hope of escape.” “Why should it, if the mind is really unsound? You must remember that such people don’t suffer in the way that rational people do.” “But suppose he doesn’t happen to be insane?” “If he doesn’t happen to be insane the law cannot confine him as a lunatic.” “Who will decide?” “He will be certified by two doctors.” Again came silence, only broken by the peaceful plodding of old Alice. And then said Edith suddenly: “Father, whoever certifies John Smith will take an awful responsibility upon himself.”