"I am so sorry!—for you both."
"Dearest!" Mary laid her mother's hand against her cheek. "But I don't think Richard will be misunderstood again."
"No. The Bishop says that mysterious as it all is, nobody blames him for being absent. They trust him. But this time, it seems, he did write to the Bishop—just a few words."
"Yes, I know. I am glad." But as she spoke, the pale severity of the girl's look belied the word she used. During the fortnight of Meynell's absence, while he and Alice Puttenham in the south of France had been following every possible clue in a vain search for Hester, and the Arches trial had been necessarily left entirely to the management of Meynell's counsel, and to the resources of his co-defendants, Darwen and Chesham, Mary had suffered much. To see his own brilliant vindication of himself and his followers, in the face of religious England, snuffed out and extinguished in a moment by the call of this private duty had been hard!—all the more seeing that the catastrophe had been brought about by misconduct so wanton, so flagrant, as Hester's. There had sprung up in Mary's mind, indeed, a saeva indignatio, not for herself, but for Richard, first and foremost, and next for his cause. Dark as she knew Meynell's forebodings and beliefs to be, anxiety for Hester must sometimes be forgotten in a natural resentment for high aims thwarted, and a great movement risked, by the wicked folly of a girl of eighteen, on whom every affection and every care had been lavished.
"The roads will be impassable to-morrow," said Catharine, drawing aside the curtain, only to see a window already blocked with drifted snow. "But—who can be ringing on such a night!"
For a peal of the front door bell went echoing through the little house.
Mary stepped into the hall, and herself opened the door, only to be temporarily blinded by the rush of wind and snow through the opening.
"A telegram!" she exclaimed, in wonder. "Please come in and wait. Isn't it very bad?"
"I hope I'll be able to get back!" laughed the young man who had brought it. "The roads are drifting up fast. It was noa good bicycling. I got 'em to gie me a horse. I've just put him in your stable, miss."
But Mary heard nothing of what he was saying. She had rushed back into the sitting-room.