crossed him, an’ he flew into a passion with it.  It turned me sick.  I ran away and I took against him there and then.  I was frightened of him.  I duresn’t trust myself, and I said to Jim I’d take him.  So you can understan’, miss, can’t you, as Jim don’t want to have nothing to do with Westall?  Thank you kindly, all the same,” she added, breaking off her narrative with the same uncertainty of manner, the same timid scrutiny of her visitor that Marcella had noticed before.

Marcella replied that she could certainly understand.

“But I suppose they’ve not got in each other’s way of late years,” she said as she rose to go.

“Oh! no, miss, no,” said Mrs. Hurd as she went hurriedly to fetch a fur tippet which her visitor had laid down on the dresser.

“There is one person I can speak to,” said Marcella, as she put on the wrap.  “And I will.”  Against her will she reddened a little; but she had not been able to help throwing out the promise.  “And now, you won’t despair, will you?  You’ll trust me?  I could always do something.”

She took Mrs. Hurd’s hand with a sweet look and gesture.  Standing there in her tall vigorous youth, her furs wrapped about her, she had the air of protecting and guiding this poverty that could not help itself.  The mother and wife felt herself shy, intimidated.  The tears came back to her brown eyes.

* * * * *

When Miss Boyce had gone, Minta Hurd went to the fire and put it together, sighing all the time, her face still red and miserable.

The door opened and her husband came in.  He carried some potatoes in his great earth-stained hands.

“You’re goin’ to put that bit of hare on?  Well, mak’ eeaste, do, for I’m starvin’.  What did she want to stay all that time for?  You go and get it.  I’ll blow the fire up—­damn these sticks!—­they’re as wet as Dugnall pond.”

Nevertheless, as she sadly came and went, preparing the supper, she saw that he was appeased, in a better temper than before.

“What did you tell ’er?” he asked abruptly.

“What do you spose I’d tell her?  I acted for the best.  I’m always thinkin’ for you!” she said as though with a little cry, “or we’d soon be in trouble—­worse trouble than we are!” she added miserably.

He stopped working the old bellows for a moment, and, holding his long chin, stared into the flames.  With his deformity, his earth-stains, his blue eyes, his brown wrinkled skin, and his shock of red hair, he had the look of some strange gnome crouching there.

“I don’t know what you’re at, I’ll swear,” he said after a pause.  “I ain’t in any pertickler trouble just now—­if yer wouldn’t send a fellow stumpin’ the country for nothink.  If you’ll just let me alone I’ll get a livin’ for you and the chillen right enough.  Don’t you trouble yourself—­an’ hold your tongue!”

She threw down her apron with a gesture of despair as she stood beside him, in front of the fire, watching the pan.