The latter part of that week was the sorest time Clementina had
ever passed. But, like a true woman, she fought her own misery and
sense of loss, as well as her annoyance and anxiety,--constantly
saying to herself that, be the thing as it might, she could never
cease to be glad that she had known Malcolm MacPhail.
CHAPTER LIII: A NEW PUPIL
The sermon Lady Clementina heard with such delight had followed one
levelled at the common and right worldly idea of success harboured
by each, and unquestioned by one of the chief men of the community:
together they caused a strange uncertain sense of discomfort in
the mind diaconal. Slow to perceive that that idea, nauseous in
his presentment of it, was the very same cherished and justified
by themselves; unwilling also to believe that in his denunciation
of respecters of persons they themselves had a full share, they yet
felt a little uneasy from the vague whispers of their consciences
on the side of the neglected principles enounced, clashing with
the less vague conviction that if those whispers were encouraged
and listened to, the ruin of their hopes for their chapel, and
their influence in connection with it, must follow. They eyed each
other doubtfully, and there appeared a general tendency amongst
them to close pressed lips and single shakes of the head.
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