And are you going , sir ? '' `` Yes , of course . I pray God I may be able to help the poor soul , '' said Mr. Leonard sincerely . He was a man who never shirked what he believed to be his duty ; but duty had sometimes presented itself to him in pleasanter guise than this summons to Naomi Clark 's death-bed . The woman had been the plague spot of Lower Carmody and Carmody Harbour for a generation . In the earlier days of his ministry to the congregation he had tried to reclaim her , and Naomi had mocked and flouted him to his face . Then , for the sake of those to whom she was a snare or a heart-break , he had endeavoured to set the law in motion against her , and Naomi had laughed the law to scorn . Finally , he had been compelled to let her alone . Yet Naomi had not always been an outcast . Her girlhood had been innocent ; but she was the possessor of a dangerous beauty , and her mother was dead . Her father was a man notorious for his harshness and violence of temper . When Naomi made the fatal mistake of trusting to a false love that betrayed and deserted , he drove her from his door with taunts and curses . Naomi took up her quarters in a little deserted house at Spruce Cove . Had her child lived it might have saved her . But it died at birth , and with its little life went her last chance of worldly redemption . From that time forth , her feet were set in the way that takes hold on hell . For the past five years , however , Naomi had lived a tolerably respectable life . When Janet Peterson had died , her idiot daughter , Maggie , had been left with no kin in the world . Nobody knew what was to be done with her , for nobody wanted to be bothered with her . Naomi Clark went to the girl and offered her a home .
People said she was no fit person to have charge of XXXXX , but everybody shirked the unpleasant task of interfering in the matter , except Mr. Leonard , who went to expostulate with Naomi , and , as Janet said , for his pains got her door shut in his face .
Carmody Clark Leonard Maggie Naomi Peterson days left violence years