The swing door near the back staircase creaked. In the Vicarage you
could hear everything.
Mr. and Mrs. Gresley looked eagerly at the door. The parlor-maid came in
with a note between her finger and thumb.
"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 Fraeulein 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 Fraeulein, 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.
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