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.
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