ace;
therefore he knew nothing of the _affaire Archambault_, as some of the
provincial papers called it, and had heard only the bare facts of Henry
Clairville's death and burial. To complete his ignorance, the
charitable institutions to which he had written had neglected to answer
his letters, for such an offer coming from such a source required time
for consideration, and his brain, neither a subtly trained nor
naturally cunning one, was incapable of those shifting drifts of
thought which occupy themselves with idly fitting certain acts to
certain individuals. His literal mind had always connected. Miss
Clairville, from the day of the Hawthorne picnic, with Angeel, and to
be told that they were not, as he had supposed, mother and child, was
only to merge him in the absolutely crushing puzzle of a
question--whose child then could she be? Might it not be--for here at
last his mind gave a twist, fatal to its usual literal drift--her child
by some one other than Crabbe? For who could mistake the eyes and
their expression, the way the hair grew on the forehead, the shape of
the hands, white and firm like Pauline's,--resemblances all made the
stranger by association with the unnaturally formed head and shoulders
of the unhappy child?

The two stood facing each other; the Christian minister, originally a
being of blameless instincts and moral life, but now showing a
countenance and owning a temper distorted to sinful conditions from the
overshadowing of the great master passion; and the battered exile,
genuine, however, in his dealings with himself, and sincere in the
midst of degradation. So the Pharisee and the publican might have
stood. So in all ages often stand those extreme types, the moral man
who has avoided or by circumstances been free of temptation, and the
sinner who yet keeps a universal kindliness or other simple virtue in
his heart. Anguish in one was met by cheerful contempt and growing
pity in the other, and once more Crabbe essayed to reason with
Ringfield.

"Believe me," he said, "I would give way to the better man, and you, of
course, are he, if I thought Miss Clairville's future would thereby be
benefited, but I cannot imagine anything more uncongenial than the life
which you--pardon me--would be likely to offer her. She has no money
and she loves money. She is tired of her home and all these
surroundings; I can take her from them for ever. She is gifted,
intelligent, and brilliant, and I ca