“Ah, those high-principled women—­I know them!”

Mr Goldsworthy was nonplussed for the moment.  He could not accept the suggestion that Deb was not high-principled.  But he gave up his informant.

“There is ample evidence that the man is Mrs Ewing’s lover,” he grieved.  “He has been seen with her in the most equivocal situations.  I don’t wish to go into details—­to mention things unfit for a young girl’s ears—­”

“I hope not,” put in Deb, her patience giving out.  “I am not fond of that kind of talk.  I should not believe, either, in any nasty tales connected with my sister, or with Captain Carey.  And you ought not to listen to them, for Mary’s sake.  You should not pander to your high-principled ladies.  You should tell them to be more charitable, and to mind their own business.”

A year ago the parson would have taken umbrage at this rebuke; he now hastened to deprecate displeasure on the part of the one whom, of all the world, he most desired to please.

“Far be it from me to speak ill of anyone belonging to you,” he declared solemnly; but still he could not help it.

The most good-natured person, if he be greedy, will seek to ingratiate himself with Power by disparagement of rival suitors.  He was following an impulse that might be described as an instinct, in trying to weaken Deb’s favour towards the rest of her relatives in order to concentrate as much as possible upon himself—­to push back, as it were, the hands that he imagined eagerly outstretched to her (palm upwards), that the more might be dropped into his own.  He asked her if she had seen Mrs Breen, and sighed over that plebeian connection.

“I may be poor,” said he, “but I do come of a good family.  It is unfortunate, perhaps, but we cannot help our prejudices.”  “It is a ridiculous prejudice,” said Deb, “especially in a country like this.”

“Oh, it is—­it is.  I own it; but—­well, you know—­”

She brusquely brought him back to the question of Mary’s health.

“It is Mary that I want to hear about.  Tell me—­before she comes in—­ what is the matter with her?”

He was willingly confidential.

“She has worries,” said he—­“worries that you, my dear young lady, in your position, know nothing of—­would not understand if I were to tell you.”

“I have been in positions to understand most kinds of worries,” said Deb.  “What are they?  Money worries?”

“Well, I have a delicacy in—­”

“Oh, you need not have!  I know, of course, that you cannot have been too well off, and I am here on purpose to do something for you, if you will allow me.’  There was no need to beat about the bush, she knew, since Mary was out of hearing.  ’Tell me exactly, if you don’t mind—­in strict confidence, of course.  No need to trouble her—­and I shall not say anything.”

He told her, with fullness and fervour, when he had expressed his too fulsome gratitude.