Mrs. Buchanan was a little disconcerted by the failure of her prevision, but she would not recede. “If she has not done it yet, she will do it sometime. Mind what I am saying to you, Claude: there is something on her conscience, and she wants to put it off on you.”
“Nonsense, Mary,” he said. “What should be on the woman’s conscience? and why should she try to put it upon mine? Dear me, my conscience would be far easier bearing the weight of her ill-doing than the weight of my own. We must get this beam out of our own eye if we can, and then the mote in our neighbour’s--if there is a mote--will be easy, oh, very easy, to put up with. It is my own burden that troubles me.”
“Toot,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “you are just very exaggerated. It was most natural Mr. Anderson should do as he did, knowing all the circumstances--and you, what else should you do, to go against him? But you will just see,” she added, confidently, “that I will prove a true prophet after all. If it has not been done, it will be done, and you will get her sin to bear as well as your own.”
Meanwhile, the reader shall judge by the turn of one of these conversations whether Mrs. Buchanan was, or was not, justified in her prevision. Mrs. Mowbray came tripping up the long stair, which was of stone, and did not creak under foot, though she was betrayed by the rustle of her silk dress, which was in those days a constant accompaniment of a woman’s movements. When she approached nearer, there were other little sounds that betrayed her,--a little jingle of bracelets and chains, and the bugles of her mantle. She was naturally dressed in what was the height of the fashion then, though we should think it ridiculous now, as we always think the fashions that are past. When Mr. Buchanan heard that little jingle and rattle, his heart failed him. He put down his pen or his book, and the healthful colour in his cheek failed. A look of terror and trouble came into his face.
“Here is _that_ woman again,” he said to himself. Mrs. Mowbray, on her side, was very far from thinking herself _that_ woman; she rather thought the minister looked forward with pleasure to her visits, that she brought a sort of atmosphere of sunshine and the great world into that sombre study of his, and that the commonplace of his life was lighted up by her comings and goings. There are a great many people in the world who deceive themselves in this way, and it would have been a shock to Mrs. Mowbray if she had seen the appalled look of the minister’s face when his ear caught the sound of her coming, and he looked up to listen the better, with a gesture of impatience, almost despair, saying to himself, “that woman again.”