“Well, well, little Grey,”—­with a forbearing smile,—­“she is your sister,—­you’re a clannish body.  Your heart’s all right, my dear,”—­patting the hard nervous hand that lay on the table,—­“but you never studied theology, that’s clear.”

“I don’t know.”

Mrs. Blecker’s face grew hot; but that might have been the steam of the coffee-urn.

“We’ll be just to Lizzy,” said her husband, gravely.  “She had a hurt lately.  I don’t think she values her life for much now.  It is a hungry family, the Gurneys,”—­with a quizzical smile.  “My wife, here, kept the wolf from the door almost single-handed, though she don’t understand theology.  You are quite right about that.  When I came home here two months ago, she would not be my wife; there was no one to take her place, she said.  So, one day, when I was in my office alone, Lizzy came to me, looking like a dead body out of which the soul had been crushed.  She had been hurt, I told you:—­she came to me with an open letter in her hand.  It was from the manager of one of the second-rate opera-troupes.  The girl can sing, and has a curious dramatic talent, her only one.

“‘It is all I am capable of doing,’ she said.  ’If I go, Grey can marry.  The family will have a sure support.’

“Then she folded the letter into odd shapes, with an idiotic look.

“‘Do you want me to answer it?’ I asked.

“’Yes, I do.  Tell him I’ll go.  Grey can be happy then, and the others will have enough to eat.  I never was of any use before.’

“I knew that well enough.  I sat down to write the letter.

“‘You will be turned out of church for this,’ I said.

“She stood by the window, her finger tracing the rain-drops on the pane, for it was a rainy night.  She said,—­

“‘They won’t understand.  God knows.’

“So I wrote on a bit, and then I said,—­for I felt sorry for the girl, though she was doing it for Grey,—­I said,—­

’"Lizzy, I’ll be plain with you.  There never was but one human being loved you, perhaps.  When he was dying, he said, “Tell my wife to be true and pure.”  There is a bare possibility that you can be both as an opera-singer, but he never would believe it.  If you met him in heaven, he would turn his back on you, if you should do this thing.’

“I could not see her face,—­her back was towards me,—­but the hand on the window-pane lay there for a long while motionless, the blood settling blue about the nails.  I did not speak to her.  There are some women with whom a physician, if he knows his business, will never meddle when they grow nervous; they come terribly close to God and the Devil then, I think.  I tell you, Mrs. Sheppard, now and then one of your sex has the vitality and pain and affection of a thousand souls in one.  I hate such women,” vehemently.

“Men like you always do,” quietly.  “But I am not one of them.”

“No, nor Grey, thank God!  Whoever contrived that allegory of Eve and the apple, though, did it well.  If the Devil came to Lizzy Gurney, he would offer no meaner temptation than ’Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’”