And what would be the effect on Rachel when the stormy interview
was over? A salutary moral depression would be the effect. Her pride
would be exhausted, her stubbornness would be exhausted, by the
resolute resistance which it was in her character to make under the
circumstances. She would turn for sympathy to the nearest person who had
sympathy to offer. And I was that nearest person--brimful of comfort,
charged to overflowing with seasonable and reviving words. Never had the
evangelising prospect looked brighter, to my eyes, than it looked now.
She came down to breakfast, but she ate nothing, and hardly uttered a
word.
After breakfast she wandered listlessly from room to room--then suddenly
roused herself, and opened the piano. The music she selected to play was
of the most scandalously profane sort, associated with performances on
the stage which it curdles one's blood to think of. It would have been
premature to interfere with her at such a time as this. I privately
ascertained the hour at which Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite was expected, and
then I escaped the music by leaving the house.
Being out alone, I took the opportunity of calling upon my two resident
friends.
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