“I do hope that that child—that she hasn’t been too much upset by all this dreadful business?”

“Her mother’s death, you mean?”

“That, of course. But I really meant, the—the unpleasantness behind it.”

I was curious. I wanted Miss Barton’s reaction.

“What do you think about that? Was it true?”

“Oh, no, no, surely not. I’m quite sure that Mrs. Symmington never—that he wasn’t”—little Emily Barton was pink and confused—“I mean it’s quite untrue—although of course it may have been a judgment.”

“A judgment?” I said, staring.

Emily Barton was very pink, very Dresden china shepherdess-like.

“I cannot help feeling that all these dreadful letters, all the sorrow and pain they have caused, may have been sent for a purpose.”

“They were sent for a purpose, certainly,” I said grimly.

“No, no, Mr. Burton, you misunderstood me. I’m not talking of the misguided creature who wrote them—someone quite abandoned that must be. I mean that they have been permitted—by Providence! To awaken us to a sense of our shortcomings.”

“Surely,” I said, “the Almighty could choose a less unsavoury weapon.”

Miss Emily murmured that God moved in a mysterious way.

“No,” I said. “There’s too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will. I might concede you the Devil. God doesn’t really need to punish us, Miss Barton. We’re so very busy punishing ourselves.”

“What I can’t make out is why should anyone want to do such a thing?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“A warped mentality.”

“It seems very sad.”

“It doesn’t seem to me sad. It seems to me just damnable. And I don’t apologize for the word. I mean just that.”

The pink had gone out of Miss Barton’s cheeks. They were very white.

“But why, Mr. Burton, why? What pleasure can anyone get out of it?”

“Nothing you and I can understand, thank goodness.”

Emily Barton lowered her voice.

“They say that Mrs. Cleat—but I really cannot believe it.”

I shook my head. She went on in an agitated manner:

“Nothing of this kind has ever happened before—never in my memory. It has been such a happy little community. What would my dear mother have said? Well, one must be thankful that she has been spared.”

I thought from all I had heard that old Mrs. Barton had been sufficiently tough to have taken anything, and would probably have enjoyed this sensation.

Emily went on:

“It distresses me deeply.”

“You’ve not—er—had anything yourself?”

She flushed crimson.

“Oh, no—oh, no, indeed. Oh! that would be dreadful.”

I apologized hastily, but she went away looking rather upset.

I went into the house. Joanna was standing by the drawing room fire which she had just lit, for the evenings were still chilly.

She had an open letter in her hand.

She turned her head quickly as I entered.

“Jerry! I found this in the letter box—dropped in by hand. It begins, “You painted trollop….”

“What else does it say?”

Joanna gave a wide grimace.