Mr. Gresley hesitated. He never saw the difficulties entailed by any action until they were actually upon him. He had had no idea he would find it wellnigh impossible to open a certain subject.
Hester involuntarily came to his a.s.sistance.
"Well, perhaps I ought to look at my letters. By the way, there ought to be a large package for me from Bentham. It was not with my letters.
Perhaps you sent it to my room."
"It did arrive," said Mr. Gresley, "and perhaps I ought to apologize, for I saw my name on it and I opened it by mistake. I was expecting some more copies of my _Modern Dissent_."
"It does not matter. I have no doubt you put it away safely. Where is it?"
"Having opened it, I glanced at it."
"I am surprised to hear that," said Hester, a pink spot appearing on each cheek, and her eyes darkening. "When did I give you leave to read it?"
Mr. Gresley looked dully at his sister, and went on without noticing her question.
"I glanced at it. I do not see any difference between reading a book in ma.n.u.script or in print. I don"t pretend to quibble on a point like that.
After looking at it, I felt that it was desirable I should read the whole. You may remember, Hester, that I showed you my _Modern Dissent_.
If I did not make restrictions, why should you?"
"The thing is done," said Hester. "I did not wish you to read it, and you have read it. It can"t be helped. We won"t speak of it again."
"It is my duty to speak of it."
Hester made an impatient movement.
"But it is not mine to listen," she said. "Besides, I know all you are going to say--the same as about _The Idyll_, only worse. That it is coa.r.s.e and profane and exaggerated, and that I have put in improprieties in order to make it sell, and that I run down the clergy, and that the book ought never to be published. Dear James, spare me. You and I shall never agree on certain subjects. Let us be content to differ."
Mr. Gresley was disconcerted. Your antagonist has no business to discount all you were going to remark by saying it first.
His color was gradually leaving him. This was worse than an Easter vestry meeting, and that was saying a good deal.
"I cannot stand by calmly and see you walk over a precipice if I can forcibly hold you back," he said. "I think, Hester, you forget that it is my affection for you that makes me try to restrain you. It is for your own sake that--that--"
"That what?"
"That I cannot allow this book to be published," said Mr. Gresley, in a low voice. He hardly ever lowered his voice.
There was a moment"s pause. Hester felt the situation was serious. How not to wound him, yet not to yield?
"I am eight-and-twenty," she said. "I am afraid I must follow my own judgment. You have no responsibility in the matter. If I am blamed," she smiled proudly--at that instant she knew all that her book was worth--"the blame will not attach to you. And, after all, Minna and the Pratts and the Thursbys need not read it."
"No one will read it," said Mr. Gresley. "It was a profane, wicked book.
No one will read it."
"I am not so sure of that," said Hester.
The brother and sister looked at each other with eyes of flint.
"No one will read it," repeated Mr. Gresley--he was courageous, but all his courage was only just enough--"because, for your own sake, and for the sake of the innocent minds which might be perverted by it, I have--I have--burned it."
Hester stood motionless, like one struck by lightning, livid, dead already--all but the eyes.
"You dared not," said the dead lips. The terrible eyes were fixed on him. They burned into him.
He was frightened.
"Dear Hester," he said, "I will help you to rewrite it. I will give up an hour every morning till--" Would she never fall? Would she always stand up like that? "Some day you will know I was right to do it. You are angry now, but some day--" If she would only faint, or cry, or look away.
"When Regie was ill," said the slow, difficult voice, "I did what I could. I did not let your child die. Why have you killed mine?"
There was a little patter of feet in the pa.s.sage. The door was slowly opened by Mary, and Regie walked solemnly in, holding with extreme care a small tin-plate, on which reposed a large potato.
"I baked it for you, Auntie Hester," he said, in his shrill voice, his eyes on the offering. "It was my very own "tato Abel gave me. And I baked it in the bonfire and kept it for you."
Hester turned upon the child like some blinded, infuriated animal at bay, and thrust him violently from her. He fell shrieking. She rushed past him out of the room, and out of the house, his screams following her. "I"ve killed him," she said.
The side gate was locked. Abel had just left for the night. She tore it off its hinges and ran into the back-yard.
The bonfire was out. A thread of smoke twisted up from the crater of gray ashes. She fell on her knees beside the dead fire, and thrust apart the hot embers with her bare hands.
A ma.s.s of thin black films that had once been paper met her eyes. The small writing on them was plainly visible as they fell to dust at the touch of her hands.
"It is dead," she said in a loud voice, getting up. Her gown was burned through where she had knelt down.
In the still air a few flakes of snow were falling in a great compa.s.sion.
"Quite dead," said Hester. "Regie and the book."
And she set off running blindly across the darkening fields.
It was close on eleven o"clock. The Bishop was sitting alone in his study writing. The night was very still. The pen travelled, travelled.
The fire had burned down to a red glow. Presently he got up, walked to the window, and drew aside the curtain.
"The first snow," he said, half aloud.
It was coming down gently, through the darkness. He could just see the white rim on the stone sill outside.
"I can do no more to-night," he said, and he bent to lock his despatch-box with the key on his watch-chain.
The door suddenly opened. He turned to see a little figure rush towards him, and fall at his feet, holding him convulsively by the knees.
"Hester!" he said, in amazement. "Hester!"
She was bareheaded. The snow was upon her hair and shoulders. She brought in the smell of fire with her.