"But what was she to him that he should have been such a coward about her?" "Oh, he loved her more than anything on earth--for he loved my mother only a little while. When Mrs. Gay first came to live with him, she was so beautiful and so delicate, that she looked as if a wind would blow her away--so soft that she could smother a person like a mass of feathers. He felt after that that he had entangled himself, and it was only at the last when he was dying that he had any remorse. With all his wickedness there was a terrible kind of religion in him--like a rock that is buried under the earth--and he wanted to save his soul alive before he passed on to judgment. As if _that_ did any good--or he _could_ make amends either to me or to God." "I rather hope he was as unsuccessful in the last case as in the first. But, tell me, Molly, how does it affect you?" "Not at all--not at all--if he has left me money, I shall not touch it. He wasn't thinking of mother, but of his own soul at the end, and can you tell me that God would wipe out all his dreadful past just because of one instant's fear?" Her passion, so unlike the meekness of Janet Merryweather, made him look at her wonderingly, and yet with a sympathy that kept him dumb. It took the spirit of a Gay to match a Gay, he thought, not without bitterness. "But why does Mr. Chamberlayne come to you now?" he asked, when he had regained his voice. "It is Mrs. Gay--it has always been Mrs. Gay ever since Mr. Jonathan first saw her. She smothered his soul with her softness, and wound him about her little finger when she appeared all the time too weak to lift her hand. That's just the kind Mr. Mullen preaches about in his sermons--the kind that rules without your knowing it. But if she'd been bold and bad instead of soft and good, she couldn't have done half the harm!" "And Miss Kesiah?" he asked, "had she nothing to do with it?" "She? Oh, her sister has drained her--there isn't an ounce of red blood left in her veins. Mr. Jonathan never liked her because she is homely, and she had no influence over him. Mrs. Gay ruled him." "I always thought her so lovely and gentle," he said regretfully, "she seems to me so much more womanly than Miss Kesiah." "I suppose she is as far as her face goes, and that's what people judge by. If you part your hair and look a certain way nothing that you can do will keep them from thinking you an angel. When I smile at Mr. Mullen in church it convinces him that I like visiting the sick." "How can you laugh at him, Molly, if you are going to marry him?" "Have you positively decided," she inquired, "that I am going to marry him?" "Wasn't that what you meant when you threw me over?" She shook her head, "No, it wasn't what I meant--but since you've made up your mind, I suppose there's no use for me to say a word?" "On the whole I don't think there is--for your words are not honest ones." "Then why do you judge me by them, Abel?" she asked very softly.