"Auntie Hester is very sorry," said the Bishop. "She is so sorry that she can't even cry."
"Tell her not to mind," said Regie.
"It's no good telling her. Does your arm hurt much?"
"I don't know. Mother says it does, and Fräulein says it doesn't. But it isn't that."
"What is it, then?"
"It isn't that, or the 'tato being lost, it was only crumbs afterwards; but, Mr. Bishop, I hadn't done nothing."
Regie looked into the kind keen eyes, and his own little red ones filled again with tears.
"I had not done nothing," he repeated. "And I'd kept my 'tato for her. It's that—that—I don't mind about my arm. I'm Christian soldiers about my arm; but it's that—that—"
"That hurts you in your heart," said the Bishop, putting his arm round him.
"Yes," said Regie, producing a tight little ball that had once been a handkerchief. "Auntie Hester and I were such friends. I told her all my secrets, and she told me hers. I knew long before, when she gave father the silver cream-jug, and about Fräulein's muff. If it was a mistake, like father treading on my foot at the school-feast, I should not mind, but she did it on purpose."