“Very well,” said the inspector; “only it is my duty to warn you that anything you say now will be taken down and used as evidence at the inquest.”

Marcella came near.  As she stood in front of him, one trembling ungloved hand crossed over the other, the diamond in her engagement ring catching the light from the window sparkled brightly, diverting even for the moment the eyes of the little fellow against whom her skirts were brushing.

“Ee might ha’ killed me just as well as I killed ’im,” said Hurd, bending over to her and speaking with difficulty from the dryness of his mouth.  “I didn’t mean nothink o’ what happened.  He and Charlie came on us round Disley Wood.  He didn’t take no notice o’ them.  It was they as beat Charlie.  But he came straight on at me—­all in a fury—­a blackguardin’ ov me, with his stick up.  I thought he was for beatin’ my brains out, an’ I up with my gun and fired.  He was so close—­that was how he got it all in the head.  But ee might ‘a’ killed me just as well.”

He paused, staring at her with a certain anguished intensity, as though he were watching to see how she took it—­nay, trying its effect both on her and himself.  He did not look afraid or cast down—­nay, there was a curious buoyancy and steadiness about his manner for the moment which astonished her.  She could almost have fancied that he was more alive, more of a man than she had ever seen him—­mind and body better fused, more at command.

“Is there anything more you wish to say to me?” she asked him, after waiting.

Then suddenly his manner changed.  Their eyes met.  Hers, with all their subtle inheritance of various expression, their realised character, as it were, searched his, tried to understand them—­those peasant eyes, so piercing to her strained sense in their animal urgency and shame. Why had he done this awful thing?—­deceived her—­wrecked his wife?—­that was what her look asked.  It seemed to her too childish—­too stupid to be believed.

“I haven’t made nobbut a poor return to you, miss,” he said in a shambling way, as though the words were dragged out of him.  Then he threw up his head again.  “But I didn’t mean nothink o’ what happened,” he repeated, doggedly going off again into a rapid yet, on the whole, vivid and consecutive account of Westall’s attack, to which Marcella listened, trying to remember every word.

“Keep that for your solicitor,” the inspector said at last, interrupting him; “you are only giving pain to Miss Boyce.  You had better let her go to your wife.”

Hurd looked steadily once more at Marcella.  “It be a bad end I’m come to,” he said, after a moment.  “But I thank you kindly all the same. They’ll want seein’ after.”  He jerked his head towards the boy, then towards the outhouse or scullery where his wife was.  “She takes it terr’ble hard.  She wanted me to run.  But I said, ‘No, I’ll stan’ it out.’  Mr. Brown at the Court’ll give you the bit wages he owes me.  But they’ll have to go on the Union.  Everybody’ll turn their backs on them now.”