The minister lived in a small frame house near the church. A widow woman of certain age and uncertain temper kept his house and provided his ascetic fare. It was she who opened the door to Mary, with the suspicious glance due to the visitor's youth and good looks. Proclaiming that Mr. Robertson was busy writing his sermon, she nevertheless consented to knock at his study door, and after a moment Mary was admitted. Hilary rose from his desk to receive her, gave her hand a quick nervous clasp, and indicated a chair facing the windows, the only easy-chair in the bare room. For himself he was impatient of comfort. He sat down again before his desk and waited for Mary to speak, but seeing that she looked pale and troubled and hesitated, he began with an effort to question her.
"What is it, Mary? You have something to tell me? How can I help you?"
She looked earnestly at him, her face was more youthful in its expression of appeal and confidence.
"You're the only person I _can_ speak to.... Nobody else understands," she murmured. "Every one thinks I am wrong."
"My mother is so unhappy, and she makes me unhappy.... Do you think I'm wrong, to marry against her wish?"
Hilary was silent, looking at some papers on his desk and moving them about. At last he said in a low voice:
"Not if you're sure, otherwise, that it's right--for you, I mean. We have to judge for ourselves, nobody can judge for us.... Your parents are opposed ... to your marriage?"
"Yes--in a different way, not for the same reason. My mother never has liked Laurence, she doesn't trust him--and my father--doesn't trust _me_, he doesn't think I know my own mind."
"Oh, yes," said Mary. "I couldn't desert Laurence, possibly, and I don't see why I should put him off longer--when it has been so long already--"
"Why, we would be married at home, I suppose."
"No, Laurence is going into Judge Baxter's office, and we're going to live at the Judge's house, for the present."
"I see," said Hilary, in a trembling voice.
"At first Laurence wanted to go away, to start somewhere else, but I persuaded him to stay here," Mary went on. "I didn't want to go to a strange place. All I care about is here. I don't want to go away from you, Mr. Robertson, I depend on you--"