I assure you I fully understand your position.
The fact is, I was too much surprised and I am too anxious for your safety not to think immediately of securing that--ahem--that unfortunate man." "Oh, it is not my safety! It is not only my safety--" "I understand--yes--of course you are anxious about him.

But it is doubtless not our business to aid the law in its course, provided we do not oppose it." "It is something else," murmured Mrs.Goddard.

"Oh! how shall I tell you," she moaned turning her pale cheek to the back of the chair.
The vicar looked at her and began to think it was perhaps some strange case of conscience with which he had to deal.

He had very little experience of such things save in the rude form they take among the labouring classes.

But he reflected that it was likely to be something of the kind; in such a case Mrs.Goddard would naturally enough have sent for him, more as her clergyman than as her friend.