“Should the servants of the Lord falter in doing His work?” Mrs. Stoddard’s voice intoned reverently, while she looked at Agatha with her sincere eyes.  “No.  He gives strength to perform His commands.  But sickness and sorrow and death are on every hand; to some it is appointed for a moment’s trial, to others it is the wages of sin.  We can not alter the Lord’s decrees.”

Agatha stared at the rapt speaker with amazed eyes, and presently the anger she had felt at Doctor Thayer’s words rose again within her breast, doubly strong.  The doctor had given but a feeble version of the judgment; here was the real voice hurling anathema, as did the prophets of old.  But even as she listened, she gathered all her force to combat this sword of the spirit which had so suddenly risen against her.

“You are a hard and unjust woman, to talk of the ‘wages of sin.’  What do you know of my life, or of him who is sick over at the red house?  Who are you, to sit in judgment upon us?”

“I am the humblest of His servants,” replied Susan Stoddard, and there was no shadow of hypocrisy in her tones.  She went on, almost sorrowfully:  “But we are sent to serve and obey.  ’Keep ye separate and apart from the children of this world,’ is His commandment, and I have no choice but to obey.  Besides,” and she looked up fearlessly into Agatha’s face, “we do know about you.  It is spoken of by all how you follow a wicked and worldly profession.  You can’t touch pitch and not be defiled.  The temple must be purged and emptied of worldliness before Christ can come in.”

Agatha was baffled by the very simplicity and directness of Mrs. Stoddard’s words, even though she felt that her own texts might easily be turned against her.  But she had no heart for argument, even if it would lead her to verbal triumph over her companion.  Instinctively she felt that not thus was Mrs. Stoddard to be won.

“Whatever you may think about me or about my profession, Mrs. Stoddard,” she said, “you must believe me when I say that Mr. Hambleton is free from your censure, and worthy of your sincerest praise.  He is not an opera singer—­of that I am convinced—­”

Susan Stoddard here interpolated a stern “Don’t you know?”

“Listen, Mrs. Stoddard!” cried Agatha in desperation.  “When the yacht, the Jeanne D’Arc, began to sink, there was panic and fear everywhere.  While I was climbing down into one of the smaller boats, the rope broke, and I fell into the water.  I should have drowned, then and there, if it had not been for this man; for all the rest of the ship’s load jumped into the boats and rowed away to save themselves.  He helped me to come ashore, after I had become exhausted by swimming.  He is ill and near to death, because he risked his life to save mine.  Is not that a heaven-inspired act?”

Mrs. Stoddard’s eyes glistened at Agatha’s tale, which had at last got behind the older woman’s armor.  But her next attack took a form that Agatha had not foreseen.  In her reverent voice, so suited to exhortation, she demanded: