The few that saw them thus said it was like looking on a pair
of ugly statues. And this lasted for four years.
Of course the matter came to their minister's ears--he was a
"Brianite"--and the minister spoke to them after prayer-meeting, one
Wednesday night, and called at the cottage early next morning, to
reconcile them. He stayed fifteen minutes and came away, down the
street, with a look on his face such as Moses might have worn on his
way down from Mount Sinai, if only Moses had seen the devil there,
instead of God.
At the end of four years, the neighbours remarked that for two days
no smoke had issued from the chimney of this cottage, nor had anyone
seen the front door opened. There grew a surmise that the quarrel
had flared out at last, and the wedded pair were lying within, in
their blood. The anticipated excitement of finding the bodies was
qualified, however, by a very present sense of the manner in which
the bodies had resented intrusion during life. It was not until
sunset on the second day that the constable took heart to break in
the door.
There were no corpses. The kitchen was tidy, the hearth swept, and
the house empty. On the table lay a folded note, addressed, in the
man's handwriting, to the minister.
"Dear Friend in Grace," it began, "we have been married ten
years, and neither has broken the other; until which happens,
it must be hell between us.
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