"She is not there," said Mr. Gresley, in a shaking voice. "I wrote Mr. Pratt such a guarded letter, saying Hester had imprudently run across to see them on her return home, and how grateful I was to Mrs. Pratt for not allowing her to return, as it had begun to snow. He says he and Mrs. Pratt have not seen her."

"James," said Mrs. Gresley, "where is she?"

A second step shuffled across the hail, and Fräulein stood in the door-way. Her pale face was drawn with anxiety. In both hands she clutched a trailing skirt plastered with snow, hitched above a pair of large goloshed feet, into which the legs were grafted without ankles.

"She has not return?"

"No," said Mr. Gresley, "and she is not with the Pratts."

"I know always she is not wiz ze Pratts," said Fräulein, scornfully. "She never go to Pratt if she is in grief. I go out at half seven this morning to ze Br-r-rowns, but Miss Br-r-rown know nozing. I go to Wilderleigh, I see Mrs. Loftus still in bed, but she is not there. I go to Evannses, I go to Smeeth, I go last to Mistair Valsh, but she is not there."

Mr. Gresley began to experience something of what Fräulein had been enduring all night.

"She would certainly not go from my house to a Dissenter's," he said, stiffly. "You might have saved yourself the trouble of calling there, Fräulein."

"She like Mr. and Mrs. Valsh. She gives them her book."

Fräulein's voice drowned the muffled rumbling of a carriage and a ring at the bell, the handle of which, uninjured amid the chaos, kept watch above the remains of the late porch.

The Bishop stood a moment in the little hall, while the maid went into the dining-room to tell the Gresleys of his arrival. His eyes rested on the pile of letters on the table, on the dead flowers beside them. They had been so beautiful yesterday when he gave them to Hester. Hester herself had been so pretty yesterday.

The maid came back and asked him to "step" into the dining-room.

Mr. and Mrs. Gresley had risen from their chairs. Their eyes were fixed anxiously upon him. Fräulein gave a little shriek and rushed at him.

"She is viz you?" she gasped, shaking him by the arm.

"She is with me," said the Bishop, looking only at Fräulein, and taking her shaking hands in his.

"Thank God," said Mr. Gresley, and Mrs. Gresley sat down and began to cry.

Some of the sternness melted out of the Bishop's face as he looked at the young couple.

"I came as soon as I could," he said. "I started soon after seven, but the roads are heavy."

"This is a great relief," said Mr. Gresley. He began on his deepest organ note, but it quavered quite away on the word relief for want of wind.

"How is Regie?" said the Bishop. It was his turn to be anxious.