“Beats ’im?” asked Tilda, and suddenly, still erect on her chair and looking down on the woman, felt her courage flowing back full and strong.  “He’s a beast, then.”

“You musn’ talk like that,” said the woman hurriedly, with a glance back at the half-open door.  “Hut he’s ’ard if you cross ‘im—­an’ the child’s pay bein’ be’ind—­’and—­”

“What’s your name?” demanded Tilda.

“Sarah ’Uggins.”

“Miss or Missis?”

“What’s that to you?”

The blood surged into the woman’s face, and she eyed the child suspiciously under lowered brows.  Tilda slipped down from her chair.  She had a sense of standing dangerously on the edge of something evil, forbidden.  If only she could scream aloud and rush out—­anywhere—­into the open air!

“I—­I was only wantin’ to speak polite,” she stammered.  “I been impident to yer.  But O, Sarah ’Uggins—­O, ma’am—­’elp me see ‘im an’ get away, an’ I’ll bless yer name fur ever and ever!  Amen.”

“Nip in front o’ me,” said the woman, “and be quick, then!  First turnin’ to the right down the stairs, an’ don’t clatter yer boots.”

Tilda obeyed breathlessly, and found herself in a dark stone stairway.  It led down steeply to the basement, and here her guide overtook and stepped ahead of her.  They passed through two dirty kitchens, through a wash-house littered with damp linen and filled with steam from a copper in the corner, and emerged upon a well-court foetid with sink-water and decaying scraps of vegetables.  They had met no one on their way, and it crossed Tilda’s mind—­but the thought was incredible—­that Sarah Huggins served this vast barracks single-handed.  A flight of stone steps led up from this area to the railed coping twenty feet aloft, where the sky shone pure and fresh.

“Up there, an’ you ’re in the garden.”  Tilda ran, so fast that at the head of the steps she had to clutch at the railing and draw breath.

The garden, too, was deserted.  A gravelled path, scarcely four feet wide, ran straight to the end of it, and along this she hurried, not daring to look back, but aware that all the back windows were following her—­watching and following her—­with horrible curtainless eyes.

The garden, planted for utility, was passably well kept.  It contained, in all its parcelled length, not a single flower.  At the very end a few currant bushes partially hid the front of the shed and glass-house.  They were the one scrap of cover, and when she reached them she had a mind to crouch and hide, if only for a moment, from the staring windows.

Her own eyes, as she passed these bushes, were fastened on the shed.  But it seemed that someone else had discovered shelter here; for with a quick, half-guttural cry, like that of a startled animal, a small figure started up, close by her feet, and stood and edged away from her with an arm lifted as if to ward off a blow.

It was a small boy—­a boy abominably ragged and with smears of blacking thick on his face, but for all that a good-looking child.  Tilda gazed at him, and he gazed back, still without lowering his arm.  He was trembling, too.