id="id00222">"Yes. And Mamma's dying. And before that—there was Mother."

Gwenda raised her head.

"He killed Mother."

"What do you mean?"

"He did. He was told that Mother would die or go mad if she had another baby. And he let her have Ally. No wonder Mummy ran away from him."

"Who told you that story?"

"Mummy."

"It was horrid of her."

"Everything poor Mummy did was horrid. It was horrid of her to run away from him, I suppose."

"Why did you tell me that? I didn't know it. I'd rather not have known."

"Well, now you do know, perhaps you'll be sorrier for Ally."

"I am sorry for Ally. But I'm sorry for Papa, too. You're not."

"I'd be sorry for him right enough if he wasn't so sorry for himself."

"Gwenda, you're awful."

"Because I won't waste my pity? Ally's got nothing—He's got everything."

"Not what he cares most for."

"He cares most for what people think of him. Everybody thought him a good kind husband. Everybody thinks him a good kind father."

* * * * *

The music suddenly ceased. A sound of voices came instead of it.

"There," said Gwenda. "He's gone in and stopped her."

He had, that time.

And in the sudden ceasing of the Pathetic Sonata the three sisters heard the sound of wheels and the clank of horseshoes striking together.

Mr. Greatorex was not yet dead of his pneumonia. The doctor had passed the Vicarage gate.

And as he passed he had said to himself. "How execrably she plays."

* * * * *

The three sisters waited without a word for the striking of the church clock.

XI

The church clock struck ten.

At the sound of the study bell Essy came into the dining-room. Essy was the acolyte of Family Prayers. Though a Wesleyan she could not shirk the appointed ceremonial. It was Essy who took the Bible and Prayerbook from their place on the sideboard under the tea-urn and put them on the table, opening them where the Vicar had left a marker the night before. It was Essy who drew back the Vicar's chair from the table and set it ready for him. It was Essy whom he relied on for responses that were responses and not mere mumblings and mutterings. She was Wesleyan, the one faithful, the one devout person in his household.

To-night there was nothing but a mumbling and a muttering. And that was Mary. She was the only one who was joining in the Lord's Prayer.

Essy had failed him.

* * * * *

Prayers over, there was nothing to sit up for. All the same, it was Mr. Cartaret's rule to go back into the study and to bore himself again for a whole hour till it was bed-time. He liked to be sure that the doors were all bolted and that everybody else was in bed before he went himself.

But to-night he had bored himself so badly that the thought of his study was distasteful to him. So he stayed where he was with his family. He believed that he was doing this solely on his family's account. He told himself that it was not right that he should leave the three girls too much to themselves. It did not occur to him that as long as he had had a wife to sit with, he hadn't cared how much he had left them. He knew that he had rather liked Mary and Gwendolen when they were little, and though he had found himself liking them less and less as they grew into their teens he had never troubled to enquire whose fault that was, so certain was he that it couldn't be his. Still less was it his fault if they were savage and inaccessible in their twenties. Of course he didn't mean that Mary was savage and inaccessible. It was Gwendolen that he meant.

So, since he couldn't sit there much longer without saying something, he presently addressed himself to Mary.

"Any news of Greatorex today?"

"I haven't heard. Shall I ask Essy?"

"No," said Mr. Cartaret, so abruptly that Mary looked at him.

"He was worse yesterday," said Gwenda.

They all looked at Gwenda.

"Who told you that?" said Mr. Cartaret by way of saying something.

"Mrs. Gale."

"When did she tell you?"

"Yesterday, when I was up at the farm."

"What were you doing at the farm?"

"Nothing. I went to see if I could do anything." She said to herself, "Why does he go on at us like this?" Aloud she said, "It was time some of us went."

She had him there. She was always having him.

"I shall have to go myself tomorrow," he said.

"I would if I were you," said Gwenda.

"I wonder what Jim Greatorex will do if his father dies."

It was Mary who wondered.

"He'll get married, like a shot," said Alice.

"Who to?" said Gwenda. "He can't marry all the girls——"

She stopped herself. Essy Gale was in the room. Three months ago Essy had been a servant at the Farm where her mother worked once a fortnight.

She had come in so quietly that none of them had noticed her. She brought a tray with a fresh glass of water for the Vicar and a glass of milk for Alice. She put it down quietly and slipped out of the room without her customary "Anything more, Miss?" and "Good-night."

"What's the matter with Essy?" Gwenda said.

Nobody spoke but Alice who was saying that she didn't want her milk.

More than a year ago Alice had been ordered milk for her anæmia. She had milk at eleven, milk at her midday dinner, milk for supper, and milk last thing at night. She did not like milk, but she liked being ordered it. Generally she would sit and drink it, in the face of her family, pathetically, with little struggling gulps. She took a half-voluptuous, half-vindictive pleasure in her anæmia. She knew that it made her sisters sorry for her, and that it annoyed her father.

Now she declared that she wasn't feeling well, and that she didn't want her milk.

"In that case," said Mr. Cartaret, "you had better go to bed."

Alice went, raising her white arms and rubbing her eyes along the backs of her hands, like a child dropping with sleep.

One after another, they rose and followed her.

* * * * *

At the half-landing five steep steps in a recess of the wall led aside to the door of Essy's bedroom. There Gwenda stopped and listened.

A sound of stifled crying came from the room. Gwenda went up to the door and knocked.

"Essy, are you in bed?"

A pause. "Yes, miss."

"What is it? Are you ill?"

No answer.

"Is there anything wrong?"

A longer pause. "I've got th' faace-ache."

"Oh, poor thing! Can I do anything for you?"

"Naw, Miss Gwenda, thank yo."

"Well, call me if I can."

But somehow she knew that Essy wouldn't call.

She went on, passing her father's door at the stair head. It was shut. She could hear him moving heavily within the room. On the other side of the