"She is coming home this evening," said his wife, significantly.
Mr. Gresley abruptly left the room, and went back to his study. He was irritated, distressed.
Providence seemed to have sent the Archdeacon to advise him. And the Archdeacon had spoken with decision. "Burn it," that was what he had said, "and tell your friend that you have done so."
It did not strike Mr. Gresley that the advice might have been somewhat different if the question had been respecting the burning of a book instead of a letter. Such subtleties had never been allowed to occupy Mr. Gresley's mind. He was, as he often said, no splitter of hairs.
He told himself that from the very first moment of consulting him he had dreaded that the Archdeacon would counsel exactly as he had done. Mr. Gresley stood a long time in silent prayer by his study window. If his prayers took the same bias as his recent statements to his friend, was that his fault? If he silenced, as a sign of cowardice, a voice within him which entreated for delay, was that his fault? If he had never educated himself to see any connection between a seed and a plant, a cause and a result, was that his fault? The first seedling impulse to destroy the book was buried and forgotten. If he mistook this towering, full-grown determination which had sprung from it for the will of God, the direct answer to prayer, was that his fault?
As his painful duty became clear to him, a thin veil of smoke drifted across the little lawn.
Regie came dancing and caracoling round the corner.
"Father!" he cried, rushing to the window, "Abel has made such a bonfire in the back-yard, and he is burning weeds and all kinds of things, and he has given us each a ''tato' to bake, and Fräulein has given us a band-box she did not want, and we've filled it quite full of dry leaves. And do you think if we wait a little Auntie Hester will be back in time to see it burn?"
It was a splendid bonfire. It leaped. It rose and fell. It was replenished. Something alive in the heart of it died hard. The children danced round it.
"Oh, if only Auntie Hester was here!" said Regie, clapping his hands as the flame soared.