Is it well with the child?

“I AM not really anxious,” said Mr. Gresley, looking out across the Vicarage laurels to the white fields and hedges. All was blurred and vague and very still. The only thing that had a distinct outline was the garden railing, with a solitary rook on it.

“I am not really anxious,” he said again, sitting down at the breakfast table. But his face contradicted him. It was blue and pinched, for he had just returned from reading the morning service to himself in an ice-cold church, but there was a pucker in the brow that was not the result of cold. The Vicarage porch had fallen down in the night, but he was evidently not thinking of that. He drank a little coffee and then got up and walked to the window again.

“She is with the Pratts,” he said with decision. “I am glad I sent a note over early, if it will relieve your mind, but I am convinced she is with the Pratts.”

Mrs. Gresley murmured something. She looked scared. She made an attempt to eat something, but it was a mere pretence.

The swing door near the back staircase creaked. In the Vicarage you could hear everything.

Mr. and Mrs. Gresley looked eagerly at the door. The parlourmaid came in with a note between her finger and thumb.

“She is not there,” said Mr. Gresley in a shaking voice. “I wrote Mr. Pratt such a guarded letter saying Hester had imprudently run across to see them on her return home, and how grateful I was to Mrs. Pratt for not allowing her to return, as it had begun to snow. He says he and Mrs. Pratt have not seen her.”

“James,” said Mrs. Gresley, “where is she?”

A second step shuffled across the hall, and Fraülein stood in the doorway. Her pale face was drawn with anxiety. In both hands she clutched a trailing skirt plaistered with snow, hitched above a pair of large goloshed feet, into which the legs were grafted without ankles.

“She has not return?”

“No,” said Mr. Gresley, “and she is not with the Pratts.”

“I know always she is not wiz ze Pratts,” said Fraülein scornfully. “She never go to Pratt if she is in grief. I go out at half seven this morning to ze Br-r-rowns, but Miss Br-r-rown know nozing. I go to Wilderleigh, I see Mrs. Loftus still in bed, but she is not there. I go to Evannses, I go to Smeeth, I go last to Mistair Valsh, but she is not there.”

Mr. Gresley began to experience something of what Fraülein had been enduring all night.

“She would certainly not go from my house to a Dissenter’s,” he said stiffly. “You might have saved yourself the trouble of calling there, Fraülein.”

“She like Mr. and Mrs. Valsh. She give them her book,”

Fraülein’s voice drowned the muffled rumbling of a carriage, and a ring at the bell, the handle of which, uninjured amid the chaos, kept watch above the remains of the late porch.

The Bishop stood a moment in the little hall while the maid went into the dining-room to tell the Gresleys of his arrival. His eyes rested on the pile of letters on the table, on the dead flowers beside them. They had been so beautiful yesterday when he gave them to Hester. Hester herself had been so pretty yesterday.

The maid came back and asked him to “step” into the dining-room.

Mr. and Mrs. Gresley had risen from their chairs. Their eyes were fixed anxiously upon him. Fraülein gave a little shriek and rushed at him.

“She is viz you?” she gasped, shaking him by the arm.

“She is with me,” said the Bishop, looking only at Fraülein and taking her shaking hands in his.

“Thank God,” said Mr. Gresley, and Mrs. Gresley sat down and began to cry.

Some of the sternness melted out of the Bishop’s face as he looked at the young couple.

“I came as soon as I could,” he said. “I started soon after seven, but the roads are heavy.”

“This is a great relief,” said Mr. Gresley. He began on his deepest organ note, but it quavered quite away on the word relief for want of wind.

“How is Regie?” said the Bishop. It was his turn to be anxious.

“Regie is verr vell,” said Fraülein with decision. “Tell her he is so veil as he vas.”

“He is very much shaken,” said Mrs. Gresley, indignant mother-love flashing in her wet eyes. “He is a delicate child, and she, Hester — may God forgive her — struck him in one of her passions. She might have killed him. And the poor child fell and bruised his arm and shoulder. And he was bringing her a little present when she did it. The child had done nothing whatever to annoy her, had he, James?”

“Nothing,” said Mr. Gresley, and his conscience pricking him, he added, “I must own Hester had always seemed fond of Regie till last night.”

He felt that it would not be entirely fair to allow the Bishop to think that Hester was in the habit of maltreating the children.

“I have told him that his own mother will take care of him,” said Mrs. Gresley, “and that he need not be afraid, his aunt shall never come back again. When I saw his little arm I felt I could never trust Hester in the house again.” As Mrs. Gresley spoke she felt she was making certainty doubly sure that the woman of whom she was jealous would return no more.

“Regie cry till his ’ead ache because you say Miss Gresley no come back,” said Fraülein, looking at Mrs Gresley as if she would have bitten a piece out of her.

“I think, Fraülein, it is the children’s lesson-time,” said Mr. Gresley majestically.

Who could have imagined that unobtrusive, submissive Fraülein, gentlest and shyest of women, would put herself forward in this aggressive manner. The truth is, it is all very well to talk, you never can tell what people will do. They suddenly turn round and act exactly opposite to their whole previous character. Look at Fraülein!

That poor lady, recalled thus to a sense of duty, hurried from the room, and the Bishop, who had opened the door for her, closed it gently behind her.

“You must excuse her, my lord,” said Mr. Gresley; “the truth is, we are all somewhat upset this morning. Hester would have saved us much uneasiness, I may say anxiety, if she had mentioned to us yesterday evening that she was going back to you. No doubt she overtook your carriage, which put up at the inn for half an hour.”

“No,” said the Bishop, “she came on foot. She — walked all the way.”

Mr. Gresley smiled. “I am afraid, my lord, Hester has given you an inaccurate account. I assure you, she is incapable of walking five miles, much less ten.”

“She took about five hours to do it,” said the Bishop, who had hesitated an instant, as if swallowing something unpalatable. “In moments of great excitement nervous persons like your sister are capable of almost anything. The question is, whether she will survive the shock that drove her out of your house last night. Her hands are severely burnt. Dr. Brown, whom I left with her, fears brain fever.”

The Bishop paused, giving his words time to sink in. Then he went on slowly in a level voice, looking into the fire.

“She still thinks that she has killed Regie. She won’t believe the doctor and me when we assure her she has not. She turns against us for deceiving her.”

Mr. Gresley wrestled with a very bitter feeling towards his sister, overcame it, and said hoarsely:

“Tell her from me that Regie is not much the worse, and tell her that I— that his mother and I— forgive her.”

“Not me, James,” sobbed Mrs. Gresley. “It is too soon. I don’t. I can’t. If I said I did I should not feel it.”

“Hester is not in a condition to receive messages,” said the Bishop. “She would not believe them. Dr. Brown says the only thing we can do for her is to show Regie to her. If she sees him she may believe her own eyes, and this frightful excitement may be got under. I came to take him back with me now in the carriage.”

“I will not let him go,” said Mrs. Gresley, the mother in her overriding her awe of the Bishop. “I am sorry if Hester is ill. I will,” and Mrs. Gresley made a superhuman effort, “I will come and nurse her myself, but I won’t have Regie frightened a second time.”

“He shall not be frightened a second time. But it is very urgent. While we are wasting time talking, Hester’s life is ebbing away as surely as if she were bleeding to death. If she were actually bleeding in this room how quickly you two would run to her and bind up the wound. There would be nothing you would not do to relieve her suffering.”

“If I would let Regie go,” said Mrs. Gresley, “he would not be willing, and we could not have him taken away by force, could we, James?”

The door opened, and Regie appeared, gently pushed from behind by Fraülein’s thin hand. Boulou followed. The door was closed again immediately, almost on Boulou’s tail.

The Bishop and Regie looked hard at each other.

“I send my love to Auntie Hester,” said Regie in his catechism voice, “and I am quite well.”

“I should like to have some conversation with Regie alone,” said the Bishop.

Mrs. Gresley wavered, but the Bishop’s eye remained fixed on Mr. Gresley, and the latter led his wife away. The door was left ajar, but the Bishop closed it. Then he sat down by the fire and held out his hand............