“Then it will not hurt my feelings to see Hazard snub his congregation,” replied Strong angrily.

The family conclave ended here, and all parties henceforward fixed their eyes intently on the drama.  Mrs. Murray waited with a woman’s instinct for her moment to come.  Strong tried to counteract her influence by bungling efforts to make the lovers’ path smooth.  Catherine was a sort of cushion against which all the billiard balls of the game knocked themselves in succession, leaving her cool and elastic temper undisturbed.  Three more days passed without throwing much new light on the disputed question whether the engagement could last, except that Esther seemed clearly more anxious and restless.  Mr. Hazard was with her several hours every day and watched over her with extreme vigilance.  Mrs. Murray took her to drive every afternoon and not a glance of Esther’s eyes escaped scrutiny.  Strong stopped once or twice at the house but had no chance to interfere until on Thursday morning, his aunt told him that Esther was rapidly getting into a state of mind that must soon bring on a crisis.

“She cannot possibly make it do,” said Mrs. Murray.  “She is worrying herself to death already.  Mr. Hazard ought to see that she can’t marry him.”

“She will marry him,” answered Strong coolly.  “Three women out of four think they can’t marry a man at first, but when they come to parting with him, they learn better.”

“He is passably selfish, your Mr. Hazard.  If he thought a little more of his parish, he would not want to put over them a woman like Esther who has not a quality suited to the place.”

“Her qualities are excellent,” contradicted Strong.  “Once in harness she will be kind and gentle, a little tender-mouthed perhaps, and apt to shy at first, but thorough-bred.  He is quite right to take her if he can get her, and what does his parish expect to do about it?”

“The first thing they will do about it will be to make Esther miserable.  They have begun to gossip already.  A young man, even though he is a clergyman, can’t be seen always in company with a pretty woman, without exciting remark.  Only yesterday I was asked point-blank whether my niece was engaged to Mr. Hazard.”

“What did you say?”

“I told a lie of course, all the meaner because it was an equivocation.  I said that Mr. Hazard had not honored me with any communication on the subject.  I score up this first falsehood to his account.”

“If you lie no better than that, Aunt Sarah, Hazard’s conscience won’t trouble him much.  When is the engagement to be out?”

“Very soon, at this rate.  I thought that Esther, in common decency, could not announce it for a week or two, but every one already suspects it, and she will have to make it public within another week if she means to do so at all.  Now that she is her own mistress and lives by herself, she can’t have men so much about the house as she might if her father were living.”