Perhaps, as Mr. Pendyce had said, she was romantic; perhaps it was only the thought of the pain her boy must suffer.  The tooth was too big, it seemed to her; and, as in old days, when she took him to Cornmarket to have an aching tooth out, she ever sat with his hand in hers while the little dentist pulled, and ever suffered the tug, too, in her own mouth, so now she longed to share this other tug, so terrible, so fierce.

Against Mrs. Bellew she felt only a sort of vague and jealous aching; and this seemed strange even to herself—­but, again, perhaps she was romantic.

Now it was that she found the value of routine.  Her days were so well and fully occupied that anxiety was forced below the surface.  The nights were far more terrible; for then, not only had she to bear her own suspense, but, as was natural in a wife, the fears of Horace Pendyce as well.  The poor Squire found this the only time when he could get relief from worry; he came to bed much earlier on purpose.  By dint of reiterating dreads and speculation he at length obtained some rest.  Why had not George answered?  What was the fellow about?  And so on and so on, till, by sheer monotony, he caused in himself the need for slumber.  But his wife’s torments lasted till after the birds, starting with a sleepy cheeping, were at full morning chorus.  Then only, turning softly for fear she should awaken him, the poor lady fell asleep.

For George had not answered.

In her morning visits to the village Mrs. Pendyce found herself, for the first time since she had begun this practice, driven by her own trouble over that line of diffident distrust which had always divided her from the hearts of her poorer neighbours.  She was astonished at her own indelicacy, asking questions, prying into their troubles, pushed on by a secret aching for distraction; and she was surprised how well they took it—­how, indeed, they seemed to like it, as though they knew that they were doing her good.  In one cottage, where she had long noticed with pitying wonder a white-faced, black-eyed girl, who seemed to crouch away from everyone, she even received a request.  It was delivered with terrified secrecy in a back-yard, out of Mrs. Barter’s hearing.

“Oh, ma’am!  Get me away from here!  I’m in trouble—­it’s comin’, and I don’t know what I shall do.”

Mrs. Pendyce shivered, and all the way home she thought:  ’Poor little soul—­poor little thing!’ racking her brains to whom she might confide this case and ask for a solution; and something of the white-faced, black-eyed girl’s terror and secrecy fell on her, for, she found no one not even Mrs. Barter, whose heart, though soft, belonged to the Rector.  Then, by a sort of inspiration, she thought of Gregory.

‘How can I write to him,’ she mused, ‘when my son——­’

But she did write, for, deep down, the Totteridge instinct felt that others should do things for her; and she craved, too, to allude, however distantly, to what was on her mind.  And, under the Pendyce eagle and the motto:  ‘Strenuus aureaque penna’, thus her letter ran:  “Dear Grig,