"Better not talk about it, Anne. When a woman's been in hell for years,
you needn't expect her to come out an angel. She won't forgive him, and
she won't nurse him--that's flat."

"No reason why she should shovel him off on other people as wants their
night's rest. It's takin' advantage--that's what it is."

"I say, Anne, I must read my letters. And just light me a bit of fire,
there's a good woman. July!--ugh!--it might be February!"

In a few minutes a bit of fire was blazing in the grate, though the
windows were still wide open, and the Rector, who had had a long journey
that day to take a funeral for a friend, lay back in sybaritic ease, now
sipping his tea and now cutting open letters and parcels. The letter
signed "F. Marcoburg" in the corner had been placed, still unopened, on
the mantelpiece now facing him.

The Rector looked at it from time to time; it might have been said by a
close observer that he never forgot it; but, all the same, he went on
dipping into books and reviews, or puzzling--with muttered imprecations
on the German tongue--over some of his letters.

"By Jove! this apocalyptic Messianic business is getting interesting.
Soon we shall know where all the Pauline ideas came from--every single
one of them! And what matter? Who's the worse? Is it any less wonderful
when we do know? The new wine found its bottles ready--that's all."

As he sat there he had the aspect of a man enjoying apparently the
comfort of his own fireside. Yet, now that the face was at rest, certain