“You should be under no concern, my good Mrs. Horton, on that subject. There is really so little of the thing you have mentioned, that no reasonable woman need make herself unhappy about it. So Peter Goodwin was a faultless man, was he?” “As far from it as possible, if the truth was said of him; and seeing the man is not absolutely under ground, I do not know why it may not be told. I can respect the grave, as well as another; but, as he is not buried, one may tell the truth. Peter Goodwin was, by no means, the man he seemed to be.” “In what particular did he fail, my good Mrs. Horton?” To be _good_ in Dunscomb’s eyes, the landlady well knew, was a great honour; and she was flattered as much by the manner in which the words were uttered, as by their import. Woman-like, Mrs. Horton was overcome by this little bit of homage; and she felt disposed to give up a secret which, to do her justice, had been religiously kept now for some ten or twelve years between herself and her husband. As she and the counsel were alone, dropping her voice a little, more for the sake of appearances than for any sufficient reason, the landlady proceeded. “Why, you must know, ’Squire Dunscomb, that Peter Goodwin was a member of meetin’, and a professing Christian, which I suppose was all the better for him, seeing that he was to be murdered.” “And do you consider his being a ‘professing Christian,’ as you call it, a circumstance to be concealed?” “Not at all, sir—but I consider it a good reason why the facts I am about to tell you, ought not to be generally known. Scoffers abound; and I take it that the feelings of a believer ought to be treated more tenderly than those of an unbeliever, for the church’s sake.” “That is a fashion of the times too—one of the ways of the hour, whether it is to last or not. But, proceed if you please, my good Mrs. Horton; I am quite curious to know by what particular sin Satan managed to overcome this ‘professing Christian?’” “He drank, ’Squire Dunscomb—no, he _guzzled_, for that is the best word. You must know that Dolly was avarice itself—that’s the reason she took this Mary Monson in to board, though her house was no ways suited for boarders, standing out of the way, with only one small spare bed-room, and that under the roof. Had she let this stranger woman come to one of the regular houses, as she might have done, and been far better accommodated than it was possible for her to be in a garret, it is not likely she would have been murdered. She lost her life, as I tell Horton, for meddling with other people’s business.” “If such were the regular and inevitable punishment of that particular offence, my good landlady, there would be a great dearth of ladies,” said Tom Dunscomb, a little drily—“but, you were remarking that Peter Goodwin, the member of meeting, and Mary Monson’s supposed victim, had a weakness in favour of strong liquor?”