He scowled.

“Yo’ve called ’im thot, Essy?”

“An’ why sudn’ I call ’im?  ‘E’s a right to thot naame, annyhow.  Yo’ caann’t taake thot awaay from ’im.”

“I dawn’ want t’ taake it away from ‘im.  But I wish yo’ ‘adn’.  I wish you ‘adn’, Essy.”

“Why ‘alf t’ lads in t’ village is called Jimmy.  Yo’re called Jimmy yourself, coom t’ thot.”

He considered it.  “Well—­it’s nat as ef they didn’ knaw—­all of ’em.”

“Oh—­they knaws!”

“D’yo’ mind them, Essy?  They dawn’t maake yo’ feel baad about it, do they?”

She shook her head and smiled her dreamy smile.

He rose and looked down at her with his grieved, resentful eyes.

“Yo’ moosn’ suppawse I dawn feel baad, Essy.  I’ve laaid awaake manny a night, thinkin’ what I’ve doon t’yo’.”

“What ’ave yo’ doon, Jimmy?  Yo’ maade mae ’appy fer sex moonths.  An’ there’s t’ baaby.  I didn’ want ’im before ’e coom—­seemed like I’d ‘ave t’ ’ave ‘im stead o’ yo’.  But yo’ can goa right awaay, Jimmy, an’ I sudn’ keer ef I navver saw yo’ again, so long’s I ’ad ’im.”

“Is thot truth, Essy?”

“It’s Gawd’s truth.”

He put out his hand and caressed the child’s downy head as if it was the head of some young animal.

“I wish I could do more fer ’im, Essy.  I will, maaybe, soom daay.”

“I wouldn’ lat yo’.  I wouldn’ tooch yo’re mooney now ef I could goa out t’ wark an’ look affter ‘im too.  I wouldn’ tooch a panny of it, I wouldn’.”

“Dawn’ yo’ saay thot, Essy.  Yo’ dawn’ want to spite mae, do yo’?”

“I didn’ saay it t’ spite yo’, Jimmy.  I said it saw’s yo’ sudn’ feel saw baad.”

He smiled mournfully.

“Poor Essy,” he said.

She gave him a queer look.  “Yo’ needn’ pity mae,” she said.

* * * * *

He went away considerably relieved in his mind, but still suffering that sullen uneasiness in his soul.

XLIV

It was the last week in June.

Mary Cartaret sat in the door of the cottage by the beck.  And in her lap she held Essy’s baby.  Essy had run in to the last cottage in the row to look after her great aunt, the Widow Gale, who had fallen out of bed in the night.

The Widow Gale, in her solitude, had formed the habit of falling out of bed.  But this time she had hurt her head, and Essy had gone for the doctor and had met Miss Mary in the village and Mary had come with her to help.

For by good luck—­better luck than the Widow Gale deserved—­it was a Wednesday.  Rowcliffe had sent word that he would come at three.

It was three now.

And as he passed along the narrow path he saw Mary Cartaret in the doorway with the baby in her lap.

She smiled at him as he went by.

“I’m making myself useful,” she said.