As she explained to
Mrs. Maxse, she really was very fond of her--she was a GOOD girl. At
the same time ... Well! ... Mrs. Maxse would understand that Paul can
hardly have known what he was marrying. Ignorance! Carelessness!
Strange ideas! Some one from the centre of Africa would have known more
... and so on. Nevertheless, she was a GOOD girl ... Only she needed
guidance. Fancy, she had taken quite a fancy to poor Mr. Toms! Proposed
to call on his sister. Well, one couldn't help that. Miss Toms was a
regular communicant ... Nevertheless ... she didn't realise, that was
it. Of course, she had known all kinds of queer people in London. Paul
and Grace had rescued her. The strangest people. No, Maggie was an
orphan. She had an uncle, Grace believed, and two aunts who belonged to
a strange sect. Sex? No, sect. Very queer altogether.

Mrs. Maxse went home greatly impressed.

"The girl's undoubtedly queer," she told her husband.

"The parson's got a queer sort of wife," Colonel Maxse told his friends
in the Skeaton Conservative Club. "He rescued her from some odd sort of
life in London. No. Don't know what it was exactly. Always was a bit
soft, Trenchard."

Maggie had no idea that Skeaton was discussing her. She judged other
people by herself. Meanwhile something occurred that gave her quite
enough to think about.

She had understood from Grace that it was expected of her that she
should be at home on one afternoon in the week to receive callers. She
thought it a silly thing that she should sit in the ugly drawing-room
waiting for people whom she did not wish to see and who did not wish to
see her, but she was told that it was one of her duties, and so she
would do it. No one, however, had any idea of the terror with which she
anticipated these Friday afternoons. She had never been a very great
talker, she had nothing much to say unless to some one in whom she was
interested. She was frightened lest something should happen to the tea,
and she felt that they were all staring at her and asking themselves
why her hair was cut short and why her clothes didn't fit better.
However, there it was. It was her duty.

One Friday afternoon she was sitting alone, waiting. The door opened
and the maid announced Mrs. Purdie. Maggie remembered that she had been
told that Mr. Alfred Purdie was the richest man in Skeaton, that he had
recently married, and was but now returned from his honeymoon.

Mrs. Purdie entered and revealed herself