“I don’t think,” said Mr. Buchanan, roused to resistance, “that you will find things nearly so bad as you seem to expect. I am sure the estate has been very carefully administered while in my friend Morrison’s hands. You could not have a more honourable or a more careful steward. He could have no interest but to do the best he could for you, and I am sure he would do it. And property has not fallen in value in Fife so far as I know. I think, if you will permit me to say so, that you are alarming yourself without cause.” All this time, Mrs. Mowbray had been looking at him through the water in her eyes, her face contracted, her lips a little apart, her forehead drawn together. He glanced at her from time to time while he was speaking, but he had the air of a man who would very gladly be done with the business altogether, and had no ear for her complaints. The poor lady drew from the depths of her bosom a long sigh, and then her face changed from the momentary reality into which some strong feeling had forced it. It was a more artificial smile than ever which she forced upon her thin lips, in which there was a quiver of pain and doubt. “Ah, Mr. Buchanan, you always stand up for your own side. Why is it I cannot get you to take any interest in mine?” “My dear lady,” said the minister with some impatience, “there are no sides in the matter. It is simple truth and justice to Morrison.” Here she suddenly put her hand on his arm. “And how about the defaulters?” she said. “The defaulters!” She was as ignorant wherein the sting lay to him as he was of the gnawing of the serpent’s tooth in her. It was now his under lip that fell, his cheek that grew pale. “I don’t know what you mean by defaulters,” he said, almost roughly, feeling as if she had taken advantage when he was off his guard and stabbed him with a sharp knife. “Oh, dear Mr. Buchanan, the men who borrowed money, and never paid it! I am sure you could tell me about them if you would. The men who cheated my poor Frank’s old uncle into giving them loans which they never meant to pay.” “Mrs. Mowbray,” he said, slowly, “I remember that you have spoken to me on this subject before.” “Yes, yes, I have spoken on this subject before. Isn’t it natural I should? You as good as acknowledged it, Mr. Buchanan. You acknowledged, I remember, that you knew one of them: of course you know all of them! Didn’t he tell you everything? You were his minister and his spiritual guide. He did nothing without you.” “Mr. Anderson never asked any advice from me as to his secular business. Why should he? He understood it much better than I did. His spiritual guide in the sense in which you use the words, I never was, and never could have been.”