“I only went to stroke a cat, mamma. Indeed, I never touched the swing. Why should I? And I could not cut it with my fingers.”
“On second thoughts,” said the vicar coldly, “I think that the matter may be allowed to rest where it is. Of course, one of my servants may be the culprit, or a mischievous village youth who had been watching the children at play. But the two girls do not seem to get on well together, Mrs. Saumarez. I fear they are endowed with widely different temperaments.”
The hint could not be ignored. The lady smiled bitterly.
“It is well that I should have decided already to leave Elmsdale,” she said. “It is a charming place, but my visit has not been altogether fortunate.”
Mr. Herbert remembered the curious phrase in after years. He understood it then. At the moment he was candidly relieved when Mrs. Saumarez and Angèle took their departure. He jammed on a hat and hastened to the White House to learn what sort of sensation Elsie had created.
A week later he made a discovery. He had a curious hobby—he was his own bootmaker, and Elsie’s, having taught himself to be a craftsman in an art which might well claim higher rank than it holds. When next he rummaged among his implements for a shoemaker’s knife it was missing. It was found in the garden next spring, jammed to the top of the hilt into the soft mold beneath a rhododendron. The tools were kept on a bench in the conservatory; so Angèle might have accomplished her impish desire in a few seconds.
On reaching the White House he was mildly surprised at finding Martin propped against the knee of a tall, soldierly stranger, who was consoling the boy with a reminiscence of a far worse toss at polo, by which a hard sola topi was flattened on the iron surface of an Indian maidan. Elsie, white, but much interested, was sipping a glass of milk.
“Eh, Vicar,” cried Mrs. Bolland, in whose face Mr. Herbert saw signs of recent excitement, “your lass gev us a rare start. She landed here like a mad thing, screamed oot that Martin was dead, an’ dropped te t’ flure half dead herself.”
“The fault was mine, Mrs. Bolland. There was an accident. At first I thought Martin was badly hurt. I am, indeed, very sorry if Elsie alarmed you.”
His words were meant to reassure the others, but his eyes were fixed on the girl’s pallid face. John Bolland laughed in his dry way.