Kate's steady eyes met his without flinching. Though nothing was said about Jacqueline's letter to the Bishop, the thought of it had not for a moment been absent from their minds. "You think that?" she asked in a low voice.
"I know it! The right sort of wife is important to any man, but more to a clergyman than to others. Charm, tact, the kindliness that comes from the heart itself, above all, understanding—these are the things your little Jacqueline has brought to help her husband, and he will go far. Mark my words!—Presently I shall have to take those two young people away from you, into a wider field."
He watched her compressed, tremulous lips shrewdly and sympathetically. Jacqueline's confession and her voluntary atonement had touched his broad nature to the quick; and he had come to Storm of his own volition for the purpose of reconciling her with a presumably unforgiving mother. But his first glimpse of the mother's face showed him the needlessness of such an errand so far as she was concerned, and his sympathies turned into another channel.
He said lightly, "I suppose you hear often from the honeymooners?"
Kate shook her head.
"No? Young people are sometimes thoughtless in their happiness, forgetful of the rights of mothers.—My dear," he said suddenly, abandoning his pretense of ignorance, "why don't you go to them, take her by surprise? Things are so much better said face to face, and before any hurt has had time to rankle. Why don't you go to them?"
"I do not know where they are."
The Bishop looked thoughtful. "I can tell you," he said at last. "And I think I shall."
But Kate stopped him. The temptation had been great. She was weary of waiting for the word that never came, for the chance to hold her child in her arms again, and kiss away all the grief and pain and remorse that lay between them.
But she knew it was best for Jacqueline and Philip to come to their readjustment without her. Long meditation had taught her at last to understand that it was she herself who, unwittingly and unwillingly, had stood between them.