Mrs. Slater could not be said to be everything that was affectionate in return.  She distrusted Mrs. Carter, disliked her brilliant colouring and her fluent experiences, felt shy before her rollicking suggestiveness, and timid at her innuendoes.  For a considerable time she held her defences against the insidious attack.  Then there came a day when Mrs. Carter burst into reluctant but passionate tears, asserting that Life and Mr. Carter had been, from the beginning, against her; that she had committed, indeed, acts of folly in the past, but only when driven desperately against a wall; that she bore no grudge against any one alive, but loved all humanity; that she was going to do her best to be a better woman, but couldn’t really hope to arrive at any satisfactory improvement without Mrs. Slater’s assistance; that Mrs. Slater, indeed, had shown her a New Way, a New Light, a New Path.

Mrs. Slater, humble woman, had no illusions as to her own importance in the scheme of things; nothing touched her so surely as an appeal to her strength of character.  She received Mrs. Carter with open arms, suggested that they should read the Bible together on Sunday mornings, and go, side by side, to St. Matthew’s on Sunday evenings.  There was nothing like a study of the “Holy Word” for “defeating the bottle,” and there was nothing like “defeating the bottle” for getting back one’s strength and firmness of character.

It was along these lines that Mrs. Slater proposed to conduct Mrs. Carter.

Now unfortunately Henry took an instant and truly savage dislike to his mother’s new friend.  He had been always, of course, “odd” in his feelings about people, but never was he “odder” than he was with Mrs. Carter.  “Little lamb,” she said, when she saw him for the first time.  “I envy you that child, Mrs. Slater, I do indeed.  Backwards ’e may be, but ’is being dependent, as you may say, touches the ’eart.  Little lamb!”

She tried to embrace him; she offered him sweets.  He shuddered at her approach, and his face was instantly grey, like a pool the moment after the sun’s setting.  Had he been himself able to put into words his sensations, he would have said that the sight of Mrs. Carter assured him, quite definitely, that something horrible would soon occur.

The house upon whose atmosphere he so depended instantly darkened; his Friend was gone, not because he was no longer able to see him (his consciousness of him did not depend at all upon any visual assurance), but because there was now, Henry was perfectly assured, no chance whatever of his suddenly appearing.  And, on the other hand, those Others—­the one with the taloned claws behind the piano, the one with the black-hooded eyes—­were stronger, more threatening, more dominating.  But, beyond her influence on the house, Mrs. Carter, in her own physical and actual presence, tortured Henry.  When she was in the room, Henry suffered agony.  He would creep away were he allowed, and, if that were not possible, then he would retreat into the most distant corner and watch.  If he were in the room his eyes never left Mrs. Carter for a moment, and it was this brooding gaze more than his disapproval that irritated her.  “You never can tell with poor little dears when they’re ‘queer’ what fancies they’ll take.  Why, he quite seems to dislike me, Mrs. Slater!”