“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?”

“I said the truth, that it was no hallucination but the fact, that much as I regretted to say so Hester had written a profane and immoral book, and that I had felt it my duty to burn it, and a very painful duty it had been.  I said he would have done the same if he had read it.”