Maggie went, as soon as he was gone, and opened all the low windows, in order that they might look as usual.  She wondered at her own outward composure, while she felt so dead and sick at heart.  Her mother would soon get up; must she be told?  Edward spoke to her now and then from his hiding-place.  He dared not go back into the kitchen, into which the few neighbors they had were apt to come, on their morning’s way to Combehurst, to ask if they could do any errands there for Mrs. Browne or Nancy.  Perhaps a quarter of an hour or so had elapsed since the first alarm, when, as Maggie was trying to light the parlor fire, in order that the doctor, when he came, might find all as usual, she heard the click of the garden gate, and a man’s step coming along the walk.  She ran up stairs to wash away the traces of the tears which had been streaming down her face as she went about her work, before she opened the door.  There, against the watery light of the rainy day without, stood Mr. Buxton.  He hardly spoke to her, but pushed past her, and entered the parlor.  He sat down, looking as if he did not know what he was doing.  Maggie tried to keep down her shivering alarm.  It was long since she had seen him; and the old idea of his kind, genial disposition, had been sadly disturbed by what she had heard from Frank, of his severe proceedings against his unworthy tenantry; and now, if he was setting the police in search of Edward, he was indeed to be dreaded; and with Edward so close at hand, within earshot!  If the china fell!  He would suspect nothing from that; it would only be her own terror.  If her mother came down!  But, with all these thoughts, she was very still, outwardly, as she sat waiting for him to speak.

“Have you heard from your brother lately?” asked he, looking up in an angry and disturbed manner.  “But I’ll answer for it he has not been writing home for some time.  He could not, with the guilt he has had on his mind.  I’ll not believe in gratitude again.  There perhaps was such a thing once; but now-a-days the more you do for a person, the surer they are to turn against you, and cheat you.  Now, don’t go white and pale.  I know you’re a good girl in the main; and I’ve been lying awake all night, and I’ve a deal to say to you.  That scoundrel of a brother of yours!”

Maggie could not ask (as would have been natural, if she had been ignorant) what Edward had done.  She knew too well.  But Mr. Buxton was too full of his own thoughts and feelings to notice her much.

“Do you know he has been like the rest?  Do you know he has been cheating me—­forging my name?  I don’t know what besides.  It’s well for him that they’ve altered the laws, and he can’t be hung for it” (a dead heavy weight was removed from Maggie’s mind), “but Mr. Henry is going to transport him.  It’s worse than Crayston.  Crayston only ploughed up the turf, and did not pay rent, and sold the timber, thinking I should never miss it.  But your brother has gone and forged my name He had received