The Pastor's Wife Part 10

"This is very sad, Ingeborg," said the Bishop.

"Isn't it--oh, _isn't_ it--" was her unexpected answer, tears in her eyes. She was so tired, so frightened. She had been travelling hard since the morning of the day before. She had had nothing to eat for a time that seemed infinite. And yet this was the moment, just because she had betrayed herself to her mother and Judith, in which she was going to have to tell her father what she had done.

"It is the most distressing example," said the Bishop, "I have ever seen of that basest of sins, envy."

"Envy?" said Ingeborg. "Oh, no--that's not what it is. Oh, if it were only that! And I do congratulate Judith. Judith, I do, I do, my dear.

But--father, I've been doing it too."

It was out now, and she looked at him with miserable eyes, prepared for the worst.

"Doing what, Ingeborg?"

"I'm engaged, too."

"Engaged? My dear Ingeborg."

The Bishop was alarmed for her sanity. She really looked very strange.

Had they been giving her too much gas?

His tone became careful and humouring. "How can you," he said quietly, "have become engaged in these few days?"

"Much may happen in a week," said Ingeborg. It jumped out. She did try not to say it. She was unnerved. And always when she was unnerved she said the first thing that came into her head, and always it was either unfortunate or devastating.

The Bishop became encased in ice. This was not hysteria, it was something immeasurably worse.

"Be so good as to explain," he said sharply, and waves of icy air seemed to issue from where he stood and heave through the room.

"I'm engaged to--to somebody called Dremmel," said Ingeborg.

"I do not know the name. Do you, Marion?"

"No, oh, no," breathed Mrs. Bullivant, her eyes shut.

"Robert Dremmel," said Ingeborg.

"Who are the Dremmels, Ingeborg?"

"There aren't any."

"There aren't any?"

"I--never _heard_ of any," she said, twisting her fingers together. "We usedn't to talk about--about things like _more_ Dremmels."

"What is this man?"

"A clergyman."

"Oh. Where is he living?"

"In East Prussia."

"In where, Ingeborg?"

"East Prussia. It--it's a place abroad."

"Thank you. I am aware of that. My education reaches as far as and includes East Prussia."

Mrs. Bullivant began to cry. Not loud, but tears that stole quietly down her face from beneath her closed eyelids. She did not do anything to them, but lay with her hands clasped on her breast and let them steal.

What was the use of being a Christian if one were exposed to these scenes?

"Pray, why is he in East Prussia?" asked the Bishop.

"He belongs there."

Again the room seemed for an instant to hold its breath.

"Am I to understand that he is a German?"

"Please, father."

"A German pastor?"

"Yes, father."

"Not by any chance attached in some ecclesiastical capacity to the Kaiser?"

"No, father."

There was a pause.

"Your aunt--what did she say to this?"

"She didn't say anything. She wasn't there."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I haven't been at my aunt's."

"Judith, my dear, will you kindly leave the room?"

Judith got up and went. While she was crossing to the door and until she had shut it behind her there was silence.

"Now," said the Bishop, Judith being safely out of harm's way, "you will have the goodness to explain exactly what you have been doing."

"I think I wish to go to bed," murmured Mrs. Bullivant, without changing her att.i.tude or opening her eyes. "Will some one please ring for Richards to come and take me to bed?"

But neither the Bishop nor Ingeborg heeded her.

"I didn't _mean_ to do anything, father-" began Ingeborg. Then she broke off and said, "I--can explain better if I sit down--" and dropped into the chair nearest to her, for her knees felt very odd.