But, after all, she turned aside to the children, and sat there for some time at the foot of the little boys’ bed.  The children, especially Arthur, had been restless for long, kept awake and trembling by the strange sounds outside their door and the loud voices downstairs; but, with the deep silence that had suddenly fallen on the house after Isaac had gone away to seek his interview with Watson, sleep had come to them, and even Arthur, on whose thin cheeks the smears left by crying were still visible, was quite unconscious of his mother.  She looked at them from time to time, by the light of a bit of a candle she had placed on a box beside her; but she did not kiss them, and her eyes had no tears.  From time to time she looked quickly round her, as though startled by a sound, a breathing.

Presently, shivering with cold, she went into her own room.  There, mechanically, she took off her outer dress, as though to go to bed; but when she had done so her hands fell by her side; she stood motionless till, suddenly wrapping an old shawl round her, she took up her candle and went downstairs again.

As she pushed open the door at the foot of the stairs, she saw Isaac, where she had left him, sitting on his chair, bent forward, his hands dropping between his knees, his gaze fixed on a bit of dying fire in the grate.

‘Isaac!’

He looked up with the unwillingness of one who hates the sound he hears, and saw her standing on the lowest step.  Her black hair had fallen upon her shoulders, her quick breath shook the shawl she held about her, and the light in her hand showed the anguished brightness of the eyes.

‘Isaac, are yer comin up?’

The question maddened him.  He turned to look at her more fixedly.

’Comin up? noa, I’m not comin up—­so now yer know.  Take yerself off, an be quick.’

She trembled.

’Are yer goin to sleep down ‘ere, Isaac?’

‘Aye, or wherever I likes:  it’s no concern o’ yourn.  I’m no ‘usband o’ yourn from this day forth.  Take yourself off, I say!—­I’ll ’ave no thief for my wife!’

But instead of going she stepped down into the kitchen.  His words had broken her down; she was crying again.

‘Isaac, I’d ha’ put it back,’ she said, imploring.  ’I wor goin in to Bedford to see Mr. Grimstone—­’ee’d ha’ managed it for me.  I’d a worked extra—­I could ha’ done it—­if it ’adn’t been for Timothy.  If you’ll ’elp—­an you’d oughter, for yer are my ’usband, whativer yer may say—­ we could pay John back—­some day.  Yo can go to ’im, an to Watson, an say as we’ll pay it back—­yo could, Isaac.  I can take ter the plattin again, an I can go an work for Mrs. Drew—­she asked me again lasst week.  Mary Anne ull see to the childer.  You go to John, Isaac, to-morrer—­an—­ an—­to Watson.  All they wants is the money back.  Yer couldn’t—­yer couldn’t—­see me took to prison, Isaac.’

She gasped for breath, wiping the mist from her eye with the edge of her shawl.