“Nothing worse! what is there that is worse?” cried the minister, turning round upon her. He had been walking up and down the study, that study which had been made a purgatory to him by the money of which she spoke so lightly. It was this that was uppermost in his mind now, and not the poor woman who had thrown herself on his mercy. To tell the truth, he had but little toleration for her. She had thrown away her son’s substance in vanity, and to please herself: but what pleasure had he, the minister, had out of that three hundred pounds? Nothing! It would have been better for him a thousand times to have toiled for it in the sweat of his brow, to have lived on bread and water, and cleared it off honestly. But he had not been allowed to do this; he had been forced into the position he now held, a defaulter as she had said--an unjust steward according to the formula more familiar to his mind. “Oh, yes, Claude, there are worse things--at least to a woman. She might have misbe---- We’ll not speak of that. Poor thing, she is bad enough, and sore shaken. We will leave her quiet till the laddies come home to their lunch; as likely as not Rodie will bring Frank home with him, as I hear they are playing together: and then he must just be told she had a faint. There are some women that are always fainting; it is just the sort of thing that the like of her would do. If I were you, I would see Mr. Morrison and try what could be done to keep it all quiet. I am not fond of exposing a silly woman to her own son.” “Better to her son than to strangers, surely--and to the whole world.” “I am not so sure of that,” Mrs. Buchanan said, thoughtfully: but she did not pursue the argument. She sat very still in the chair which so short a time before had been occupied by poor Mrs. Mowbray in her passion and despair: while her husband walked about the room with his hands thrust into his pockets, and his shoulders up to his ears, full of restless and unquiet thoughts. “There’s one thing,” he said, pausing in front of her, but not looking at her, “that money, Mary: we must get it somehow. I cannot reconcile it with my conscience, I can’t endure the feeling of it: if it should ruin us, we must pay it back.” “Nothing will ruin us, Claude,” she said, steadily, “so long as it is all honest and above board. Let it be paid back; I know well it has been on your mind this many a day.” “It has been a thorn in my flesh; it has been poison in my blood!” “Lord bless us,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, with a little fretfulness, “what for? and what is the use of exaggeration? It is not an impossibility that you should rave about it like that. Besides,” she added, “I said the same at first--though I was always in favour of paying, at whatever cost--yet I am not sure that I would disappoint an old friend in his grave, for the sake of satisfying a fantastic woman like yon.” “I must get it clear, I must get it off my mind! Not for her sake, but for my own.”