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It was too serious a matter for Mrs Clinton to waste any words on; she ran upstairs, put on her bonnet, and quickly walked to her friend, the doctor.

He looked graver than ever when she told him.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid it’s very serious. I’ve never heard of anyone doing such a thing before…. Of course I’ve known of people who have left all their money to charities after their death, when they didn’t want it; but it couldn’t ever occur to a normal, healthy man to do it in his lifetime.’

‘But what shall I do, doctor?’ Mrs Clinton was almost in hysterics.

‘Well, Mrs Clinton, d’you know the clergyman of the parish?’

‘I know Mr Evans, the curate, very well; he’s a very nice gentleman.’

‘Perhaps you could get him to have a talk with your husband. The fact is, it’s a sort of religious mania he’s got, and perhaps a clergyman could talk him out of it. Anyhow, it’s worth trying.’

Mrs Clinton straightway went to Mr Evans’s rooms, explained to him the case, and settled that on the following day he should come and see what he could do with her husband.

X

In expectation of the curate’s visit, Mrs Clinton tidied the house and adorned herself. It has been said that she was a woman of taste, and so she was. The mantelpiece and looking glass were artistically draped with green muslin, and this she proceeded to arrange, tying and carefully forming the yellow satin ribbon with which it was relieved. The chairs were covered with cretonne which might have come from the Tottenham Court Road, and these she placed in positions of careless and artistic confusion, smoothing down the antimacassars which were now her pride, as the silk petticoat from which she had manufactured them had been once her glory. For the flower-pots she made fresh coverings of red tissue paper, re-arranged the ornaments gracefully scattered about on little Japanese tables; then, after pausing a moment to admire her work and see that nothing had been left undone, she went upstairs to perform her own toilet…. In less than half an hour she reappeared, holding herself in a dignified posture, with her head slightly turned to one side and her hands meekly folded in front of her, stately and collected as Juno, a goddess in black satin. Her dress was very elegant; it might have typified her own life, for in its original state of virgin whiteness it had been her wedding garment; then it was dyed purple, and might have betokened a sense of change and coming responsibilities; lastly it was black, to signify the burden of a family, and the seriousness of life. No one had realised so intensely as Mrs Clinton the truth of the poet’s words. Life is not an empty dream. She took out her handkerchief, redolent with lascivious patchouli, and placed it in her bosom–a spot of whiteness against the black…. She sat herself down to wait.

There was a knock and a ring at the door, timid, as befitted a clergyman; and the servant-girl showed in Mr Evans. He was a thin and short young man, red faced, with a long nose and weak eyes, looking underfed and cold, keeping his shoulders screwed up in a perpetual shiver. He was an earnest, God-fearing man, spending much money in charities, and waging constant war against the encroachments of the Scarlet Woman.

‘I think I’ll just take my coat off, if you don’t mind, Mrs Clinton,’ he said, after the usual greetings. He folded it carefully, and hung it over the back of a chair; then, coming forward, he sat down and rubbed the back of his hands.

‘I asked my ‘usband to stay in because you wanted to see ‘im, but he would go out. ‘Owever’–Mrs Clinton always chose her language on such occasions–”owever, ‘e’s promised to return at four, and I will say this for ‘im, he never breaks ‘is word.’