And this point of meeting was, oddly enough, our way of regarding some one who was dead.

For we had both disliked the husband with a great dislike, and during his three years’ married life had only been to the house once—­for a weekend visit; arriving late on Saturday, we had left after an early breakfast on Monday morning.  Ascribing my sister’s dislike to a natural jealousy at losing her old friend, I said merely that he displeased me.  Yet we both knew that the real emotion lay much deeper.  Frances, loyal, honorable creature, had kept silence; and beyond saying that house and grounds—­he altered one and laid out the other—­distressed her as an expression of his personality somehow (’distressed’ was the word she used), no further explanation had passed her lips.

Our dislike of his personality was easily accounted for—­up to a point, since both of us shared the artist’s point of view that a creed, cut to measure and carefully dried, was an ugly thing, and that a dogma to which believers must subscribe or perish everlastingly was a barbarism resting upon cruelty.  But while my own dislike was purely due to an abstract worship of Beauty, my sister’s had another twist in it, for with her “new” tendencies, she believed that all religions were an aspect of truth and that no one, even the lowest wretch, could escape “heaven” in the long run.

Samuel Franklyn, the rich banker, was a man universally respected and admired, and the marriage, though Mabel was fifteen years his junior, won general applause; his bride was an heiress in her own right—­ breweries—­and the story of her conversion at a revivalist meeting where Samuel Franklyn had spoken fervidly of heaven, and terrifyingly of sin, hell and damnation, even contained a touch of genuine romance.  She was a brand snatched from the burning; his detailed eloquence had frightened her into heaven; salvation came in the nick of time; his words had plucked her from the edge of that lake of fire and brimstone where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.  She regarded him as a hero, sighed her relief upon his saintly shoulder, and accepted the peace he offered her with a grateful resignation.

For her husband was a “religious man” who successfully combined great riches with the glamour of winning souls.  He was a portly figure, though tall, with masterful, big hands, his fingers rather thick and red; and his dignity, that just escaped being pompous, held in it something that was implacable.  A convinced assurance, almost remorseless, gleamed in his eyes when he preached especially, and his threats of hell fire must have scared souls stronger than the timid, receptive Mabel whom he married.  He clad himself in long frock-coats hat buttoned unevenly, big square boots, and trousers that invariably bagged at the knee and were a little short; he wore low collars, spats occasionally, and a tall black hat that was not of silk.  His voice was alternately hard and