"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 judgement."
"Judgement?" 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 misunderstand 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 apologise 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:
"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."
"Haven't you re-re-received anything?"
She went red again.
"Oh, no, no.
That would have been awful."
I hastened to apologise, but she withdrew seeming a bit annoyed.
I went into the house.
Joanna was standing in front of the fireplace in the living room that she had just lit, for the evenings were still cool.
In her hands there was an open letter.
When I came in she turned her head quickly.
"Jerry!
I found this in the mailbox.
It begins thus:
'You shameless whore...'"