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 "If she had only sent her husband instead of coming herself. One can talk to a man."

Peter might have been talking to himself. He had risen and now was walking about the room on soft-balled feet like a captive panther.

"You don't know our religion, our creed. We have the true Christian spirit and desire to help others. The sensual cannot be made the mouthpiece of the spiritual. Sensuality palsies the right hand and causes the left to let go its divine grasp. That is why I interfere, for your own good as we are enjoined. Uncleanliness must lead to the body's hurt, in so far as it can be hurt. But mind and matter being one, what hurts the one will hurt the other."

"You can cut the cackle and come to the horses," Peter interrupted rudely. He had summed up the situation and thought he might control it. To him it was obvious the woman was a common blackmailer, although she had formulated no terms. "You are making a great deal of the fact that Mr. Stanton has been down here two or three times. I suppose you know he is Mrs. Capel's publisher."

"Do not interfere, young man. You are a member of a mendacious profession. I am not here to speak to you. I know Gabriel Stanton slept in the house," she said to Margaret.

"What then? Show us your foul mind, if you dare."