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forced and hectic, when a series of confused noises from upstairs began.
Their eyes exchanged interrogations, and Mr. Maydig left the room
hastily. Mr. Fotheringay heard him calling up to his housekeeper and
then his footsteps going softly up to her.
In a minute or so the minister returned, his step light, his face
radiant. "Wonderful!" he said, "and touching! Most touching!"
He began pacing the hearthrug. "A repentance--a most touching
repentance--through the crack of the door. Poor woman! A most wonderful
change! She had got up. She must have got up at once. She had got up out
of her sleep to smash a private bottle of brandy in her box. And to
confess it too!... But this gives us--it opens--a most amazing vista of
possibilities. If we can work this miraculous change in her ..."
"
The thing's unlimited seemingly," said Mr. Fotheringay. "And about Mr.
Winch--"
"Altogether unlimited." And from the hearthrug Mr. Maydig, waving
the Winch difficulty aside, unfolded a series of wonderful
proposals--proposals he invented as he went along.
Now what those proposals were does not concern the essentials of this
story. Suffice it that they were designed in a spirit of infinite
benevolence, the sort of benevolence that used to be called
post-prandial. Suffice it, too, that the problem of Winch remained
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