A moment’s pause followed, in which the blood ebbed away from the hearts of the two women.

“I can’t,” said Regie; “I’ve swallowed it.”  And he began to whimper, and then suddenly rolled on the grass screaming.

Dick pounced upon him like a panther, and held him by the feet head downward, shaking him violently.  The child’s face was terrible to see.

Hester hid her face in her hands.  Rachel rose and stood close to Dick.

“I think the shaking is rather too much for him,” she said, watching the poor little purple face intently.  “I’m bound to go on,” said Dick, fiercely.  “Is it moving, Regie?”

“It’s going down,” screamed Regie, suddenly.

“That it’s not,” said Dick, and he shook the child again, and the half-penny flew out upon the grass.  “Thank God,” said Dick, and he laid the gasping child on Hester’s lap and turned away.

A few minutes later Regie was laughing and talking, and feeling himself a hero.  Presently he slipped off Hester’s knee and ran to Dick, who was lying on the grass a few paces off, his face hidden in his hands.

“Make the half-penny fly again, Uncle Dick,” cried all the children, pulling at him.

Dick raised an ashen face for a moment and said, hoarsely, “Take them away.”

Hester gathered up the children and took them back to the house through the kitchen garden.

“Don’t say we have arrived,” whispered Rachel to her.  “I will come on with him presently.”  And she sat down near the prostrate vine-grower.  The president of the South Australian Vine-Growers’ Association looked very large when he was down.

Presently he sat up.  His face was drawn and haggard, but he met Rachel’s dog-like glance of silent sympathy with a difficult, crooked smile.

“He is such a jolly little chap,” he said, winking his hawk eyes.

“It was not your fault.”

“That would not have made it any better for the parents,” said Dick.  “I had time to think of that while I was shaking that little money-box.  Besides, it was my fault, in a way.  I’ll never play with other people’s children again.  They are too brittle.  I’ve had shaves up the Fly River and in the South Sea Islands, but never anything as bad as this, in this blooming little Vicarage garden with a church looking over the wall.”

Hester was skimming back towards them.

“Don’t mention it to James and his wife,” she said to Dick.  “He has to speak at a temperance meeting to-night.  I will tell them when the meeting is over.”

“That’s just as well,” said Dick, “for I know if James jawed much at me I should act on the text that it is more blessed to give than to receive.”

“In what way?”

“Either way,” said Dick.  “Tongue or fist.  It does not matter which, so long as you give more than you get.  And the text is quite right.  It is blessed, for I’ve tried it over and over again, and found it true every time.  But I don’t want to try it on James if he’s anything like what he was as a curate.”