Augusta.  Since he went to France?

Minnie.  Yes.

Augusta (after a pause).  I’ve never approved of Dr. Findar employing you here.  I warned him against you—­I told him that you would betray his kindness as you betrayed mine, but he wouldn’t listen to me.  I told him that a girl who was capable of drawing my son into an intrigue while she was a member of the church and of my Bible class, a girl who had the career you had in Newcastle, couldn’t become a decent and trustworthy woman.  The very fact that you had the audacity to come back to Foxon Falls and impose on Dr. Pindar’s simplicity, proves it.

Minnie.  You know all about me, Mrs. Pindar.

Augusta.  I wasn’t born yesterday.

Minnie.  Oh, ladies like you, Christian ladies, are hard!  They won’t believe nothing good of anybody—­only the bad.  You’ve always been sheltered, you’ve always had everything you’d want, and you come and judge us working girls.  You’d drive me out of the only real happiness I ever had, being here with a man like Dr. Jonathan, doing work it’s a pleasure to do—­a pleasure every minute!—­work that may do good to thousands of people, to the soldiers over there—­maybe to George, for all you know! (She burst into tears.) You can’t understand—­how could you?  After all, you’re his mother.  I oughtn’t to forget it.

Augusta.  Yes, I’m his mother.  And you?  You haven’t given up the idea that he may marry you some day, if you stay here and pretend to have reformed.  You write to him.  George may have been foolish, but he isn’t as foolish as that!

Minnie.  He doesn’t care about me.

Augusta.  I’m glad you realize it.  But you mean to stay here in Foxon Falls, nevertheless.  You take advantage of Dr. Pindar, who is easily imposed upon, as his father was before him.  But if I told you that you might harm Dr. Pindar by staying here, interfere with his career, would you be willing to leave?

Minnie.  Me?  Me doing Dr. Jonathan harm?

Augusta, Yes.  I happen to know that he has very little money.  He makes none, he never asks anyone for a bill.  He spends what he has on this kind of thing—­research, for the benefit of humanity, as he thinks,—­but very little research work succeeds, and even then it doesn’t pay.

Minnie.  He doesn’t care about money.

Augusta.  Perhaps not.  He is one of those impractical persons who have to be looked out for, if they are fortunate enough to have anyone to look out for them.  Since he is a cousin of my husband, Mr. Pindar considers him as one of his many responsibilities.  Mr. Pindar has always had, in a practical way, the welfare of his working people at heart, and now he proposes to establish a free hospital for them and to put Dr. Pindar in charge of it.  This will give him a good living as well as a definite standing in the community, which he needs also.