‘No, it wasn’t; it was all our faults,’ wept Angela, in a confused mumble.
Babs stepped forward and tried hard not to break down and cry too. ‘Please don’t rag Jean for it,’ she begged. ‘The boy was crying, and we all thought it was the opportunity come at last––’
‘What opportunity?’ asked the Canon, looking extremely puzzled.
‘To–to do what you said in your sermon,–good works, and feeding the poor, and all that,’ faltered Barbara. Somehow, when she expressed it that way, it seemed like putting the blame on the Canon, and she was sure it could not be right for a little girl to blame a Canon. Added to this, she was possessed with the dread that they had only made themselves look ridiculous after all; and she expected that they would all three be very heartily laughed at, as soon as the old gentleman began to understand their story. She was determined in her own mind that if the Doctor should join in the laugh against them, a certain fairy prince should be turned once more into a beast and banished for ever from her kingdom. She was bound to admit, however, that the Doctor, so far, had not shown the least interest in them or their story.
‘But–but I quite fail to understand,’ said the Canon, rather testily. ‘Who was the boy you speak of, and what had you to do with him?’
‘It was Bobby Hearne,’ answered Jean, still staring down at his boots; ‘and if you only knew how hungry they all looked when we got to the cottage––’
She was interrupted by the Doctor, who suddenly behaved in the most extraordinary manner. For the first time he appeared to be listening to what they were saying, and he sprang right in front of the Canon and grasped Jean by the shoulder.
‘Do you mean to say you have been into the Hearnes’ cottage?’ he cried, shaking her in his impatience until the jelly and the cranberry pie ran some danger of following the example of the plum-pudding. ‘Were you stupid enough to go right inside?’
‘Yes!’ answered the triumvirate, with one voice.
The Doctor took his hand away, and turned with a shrug of his shoulders to the Canon.