"I am afraid," said Mrs. Gresley, after a pause, "that Hester did run all the way to Southminster as the Bishop said. Abel said the Bishop's coachman told him that she came late last night to the Palace, and she was white with snow when the footman let her in."
"My dear, I should have thought you were too sensible to listen to servant's gossip," said Mr. Gresley, impatiently. "Your own common-sense will tell you that Hester never performed that journey on foot. I told Dr. Brown the same, but he lost his temper at once. It's curious how patient he is in a sick-room, and how furious he can be out of it. He was very angry with me, too, because when he mentioned to the Bishop in my presence that Hester was under morphia, I said I strongly objected to her being drugged, and when I repeated that morphia was a most dangerous drug, with effects worse than intoxication, in fact, that morphia was a form of intoxication, he positively, before the Bishop, shook his fist in my face, and said he was not going to be taught his business by me.
"The Bishop took me away into the study. Dick Vernon was sitting there, at least he was creeping about on all fours with Regie on his back. I think he must be in love with Hester, he asked so anxiously if there was any change. He would not speak to me, pretended not to know me. I suppose the Bishop had told him about the porch, and he was afraid I should come on him for repairs, as he had tampered with it. The Bishop sent them away, and said he wanted to have a talk with me. The Bishop himself was the only person who was kind."
There was a long pause. Mrs. Gresley laid her soft cheek against her husband's, and put her small hand in a protecting manner over his large one. It was not surprising that on the following Sunday Mr. Gresley said such beautiful things about women being pillows against which weary masculine athletes could rest.
"He spoke very nicely of you," went on Mr. Gresley at last. "He said he appreciated your goodness in letting Regie go after what had happened, and your offer to come and nurse Hester yourself. And then he spoke about me. And he said he knew well how devoted I was to my work, and how anything I did for the Church was a real labor of love, and that my heart was in my work."
"It is quite true. So it is," said Mrs. Gresley.
"I never thought he understood me so well. And he went on to say that he knew I must be dreadfully anxious about my sister, but that as far as money was concerned—I had offered to pay for a nurse—I was to put all anxiety off my mind. He would take all responsibility about the illness. He said he had a little fund laid by for emergencies of this kind, and that he could not spend it better than on Hester, whom he loved like his own child. And then he went on to speak of Hester. I don't remember all he said when he turned off about her, but he spoke of her as if she were a person quite out of the common."
"He always did spoil her," said Mrs. Gresley.
"He went off on a long rigmarole about her and her talent, and how vain he and I should be if leading articles appeared in the Spectator about us as they did about her. I did not know there had been anything of the kind, but he said every one else did. And then he went on more slowly that Hester was under a foolish hallucination, as groundless, no doubt, as that she had caused Regie's death, that her book was destroyed. He said, 'It is this idea which has got firm hold of her, but which has momentarily passed off her mind in her anxiety about Regie, which has caused her illness.' And then he looked at me. He seemed really quite shaky. He held on to a chair. I think his health is breaking."
"And what did you say?"