her child into the sea?




CHAPTER IX.


Mrs. Fleming was not at her ease with me. I found her several times
watching me with a curious, intent gaze, seeking, as it were, to pierce
my thoughts, to dive into my motives, but always puzzled--even as I was
puzzled over her. That round of visiting made me more loath than ever to
believe that I was right. Such gentle thought and care, such
consideration, such real charity, I had never seen before. I was not
surprised when Lance told me that she was considered quite an angel by
the poor. I fell ill with anxiety. I never knew what to say or think.

I did what many others in dire perplexity do, I went to one older, wiser
and better than myself, a white-haired old minister, whom I had known
for many years, and in whom I had implicit trust. I mentioned no names,
but I told him the story.

He was a kind-hearted, compassionate man, but he decided that the
husband should be told.

Such a woman, he said, must have unnatural qualities; could not possibly
be one fitted for any man to trust. She might be insane. She might be
subject to mania--a thousand things might occur which made it, he
thought, quite imperative that such a secret should not be withheld from
her husband.