“I suppose we shouldn’t have made Una fast,” said Faith remorsefully.  “When I think of it, only Jerry and I should have been punished.  WE got up the concert and we were the oldest.”

“I sang Polly Wolly just the same as the rest of you,” said Una’s weak little voice, “so I had to be punished, too.”

Mrs. Clow came with a glass of milk, Faith and Jerry and Carl sneaked off to the pantry, and John Meredith went into his study, where he sat in the darkness for a long time, alone with his bitter thoughts.  So his children were bringing themselves up because there was “nobody to do it”—­struggling along amid their little perplexities without a hand to guide or a voice to counsel.  Faith’s innocently uttered phrase rankled in her father’s mind like a barbed shaft.  There was “nobody” to look after them—­to comfort their little souls and care for their little bodies.  How frail Una had looked, lying there on the vestry sofa in that long faint!  How thin were her tiny hands, how pallid her little face!  She looked as if she might slip away from him in a breath—­sweet little Una, of whom Cecilia had begged him to take such special care.  Since his wife’s death he had not felt such an agony of dread as when he had hung over his little girl in her unconsciousness.  He must do something—­but what?  Should he ask Elizabeth Kirk to marry him?  She was a good woman—­she would be kind to his children.  He might bring himself to do it if it were not for his love for Rosemary West.  But until he had crushed that out he could not seek another woman in marriage.  And he could not crush it out—­he had tried and he could not.  Rosemary had been in church that evening, for the first time since her return from Kingsport.  He had caught a glimpse of her face in the back of the crowded church, just as he had finished his sermon.  His heart had given a fierce throb.  He sat while the choir sang the “collection piece,” with his bent head and tingling pulses.  He had not seen her since the evening upon which he had asked her to marry him.  When he had risen to give out the hymn his hands were trembling and his pale face was flushed.  Then Una’s fainting spell had banished everything from his mind for a time.  Now, in the darkness and solitude of the study it rushed back.  Rosemary was the only woman in the world for him.  It was of no use for him to think of marrying any other.  He could not commit such a sacrilege even for his children’s sake.  He must take up his burden alone—­he must try to be a better, a more watchful father—­he must tell his children not to be afraid to come to him with all their little problems.  Then he lighted his lamp and took up a bulky new book which was setting the theological world by the ears.  He would read just one chapter to compose his mind.  Five minutes later he was lost to the world and the troubles of the world.

CHAPTER XXIX.  A WEIRD TALE