“Do you feel a desire to flee from the wrath to come?” he asked.

Julia gave some sort of inaudible assent.

“My dear young sister, you have great reason to be thankful—­very great reason for gratitude to Almighty God.” (Like many other pious young men, Mr. Hall said Gawd.) “I met you the other night at your uncle’s.  The young man whose life we then despaired of has recovered.”  And with more of this, Mr. Hall told Julia’s secret, while Mrs. Anderson, between her anger and her rapt condition of mind, seemed to be petrifying.

I trust the reader does not expect me to describe the feelings of Julia while Mr. Hall read a chapter and prayed.  Nor the emotions of Mrs. Anderson.  I think if Mr. Hall could have heard her grind her teeth while he in his prayer gave thanks for the recovery of August, he would not have thought so highly of her piety.  But she managed to control her emotions until the minister was fairly out of the house.  In bidding good-by, Mr. Hall saw how pale and tremulous Julia was, and with his characteristic lack of sagacity, he took her emotion to be a sign of religious feelings and told her he was pleased to see that she was awakened to a sense of her condition.

And then he left.  And then came the deluge.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE DELUGE.

The indescribable deluge!  But, after all, the worst of anything of that sort is the moment before it begins.  A plunge-bath, a tooth-pulling, an amputation, and a dress-party are all worse in anticipation than in the moment of infliction.  Julia, as she stood busily sticking a pin in the window-sash, waiting for her mother to begin, wished that the storm might burst, and be done with it.  But Mrs. Anderson understood her business too well for that.  She knew the value of the awful moments of silence before beginning.  She had not practiced all her life without learning the fine art of torture in its exquisite details.  I doubt not the black-robed fathers of the Holy Office were leisurely gentlemen, giving their victims plenty of time for anticipatory meditation, laying out their utensils quietly, inspecting the thumb-screw affectionately to make sure that it would work smoothly, discussing the rack and wheel with much tender forethought, as though torture were a sweet thing, to be reserved like a little girl’s candy lamb, and only resorted to when the appetite has been duly whetted by contemplation.  I never had the pleasure of knowing an inquisitor, and I can not certify that they were of this deliberate fashion.  But it “stands to nature” that they were.  For the vixens who are vixens of the highest quality, are always deliberate.