hissed out the words with intense malignity, nearly screaming in the
bitterness she felt towards the beautiful daughter of better education
than herself, almost of different station. It was all but a triumph for
her that this had happened. It brought her daughter down; she turned the
tables, and now, from the superiority of her virtue, she looked down
upon her with utter contempt.

IV

On the following Sunday the people of Blackstable enjoyed an emotion; as
Miss Reed said,--

'It was worth going to church this morning, even for a dissenter.'

The vicar was preaching, and the congregation paid a very languid
attention, but suddenly a curious little sound went through the
church--one of those scarcely perceptible noises which no comparison can
explain; it was a quick attraction of all eyes, an arousing of somnolent
intelligences, a slight, quick drawing-in of the breath. The listeners
had heeded very indifferently Mr Gray's admonitions to brotherly love
and charity as matters which did not concern them other than
abstractedly; but quite suddenly they had realised that he was bringing
his discourse round to the subject of Daisy Griffith, and they pricked
up both ears. They saw it coming directly along the highways of Vanity
and Luxuriousness; and everyone became intensely wide awake.

'And we have in all our minds,' he said at last, 'the terrible fall
which has almost broken the hearts of sorrowing parents and brought
bitter grief--bitter grief and shame to all of us.'...

He went on hinting at the scandal in the manner of the personal columns
in newspapers, and drawing a number of obvious morals. The Griffith
family were sitting in their pew well in view of the congregation; and
losing even the shadow of decency, the people turned round and stared at
them, ghoul-like.... Robert Griffith sat in the corner with his head
bent down, huddled up, his rough face speaking in all its lines the
terrible humiliation; his hair was all dishevelled. He was not more than
fifty, and he looked an old man. But Mrs Griffith sat next him, very
erect, not leaning against the back, with her head well up, her mouth
firmly closed, and she looked straight in front of her, her little eyes
sparkling, as if she had not an idea that a hundred people were staring
at her. In the other corner was George, very white, looking up at the
roof in simulation of indifference. Suddenly a sob came from the
Griffiths' pew, and people saw that the fathe