“D’ you pretend that nobody has told you this?  Aren’t your own eyes bright enough to see it?”

The man was in a pitiful mood, and now he grew hot and forgot himself wholly before her stinging contempt.  She did not reply to his question and he continued,—­

“Your silence is an answer.  You know well enough.  Who’s the mother?  Perhaps you know that, too.  Is she more to him than you are?”

Phoebe made a great effort to keep herself from screaming.  Then she moved hastily away, but Grimbal stopped her and dared her to proceed.

“Wait.  I’ll have this out.  Why don’t you face him with it and make him tell you the truth?  Any plucky woman would.  The scandal grows into a disgrace and your father’s a fool to stand it.  You can tell him so from me.”

“Mind your awn business an’ let me pass, you hulking, gert, venomous wretch!” she cried.  Then a blackguard inspiration came to the man, and, suffering under a growing irritation with himself as much as with Phoebe, he conceived an idea by which his secret might after all be made a bitter weapon.  He assured himself, even while he hated the sight of her, that justice to Phoebe must be done.  She had dwelt in ignorance long enough.  He determined to tell her that she was the wife of a deserter.  The end gained was the real idea in his mind, though he tried to delude himself.  The sudden idea that he might inform Blanchard through Phoebe of his knowledge really actuated him.

“You may turn your head away as if I was dirt, you little fool, and you may call me what names you please; but I’m raising this question for your good, not my own.  What do I care?  Only it’s a man’s part to step in when he sees a woman being trampled on.”

“A man!” she said.  “You’m not in our lives any more, an’ we doan’t want ’e in ’em.  More like to a meddlin’ auld woman than a man, if you ax me.”

“You can say that?  Then we’ll put you out of the question.  I, at least, shall do my duty.”

“Is it part of your duty to bully me here alone?  Why doan’t ’e faace the man, like a man, ‘stead of blusterin’ to me ’bout it?  Out on you!  Let me pass, I tell ’e.”

“Doan’t make that noise.  Just listen and stand still.  I’m in earnest.  It pleases me to know the true history of this child, and I mean to.  As a Justice of the Peace I mean to.”

“Ax Will Blanchard then an’ let him answer.  Maybe you’ll be sorry you spoke arter.”

“You can tell him I want to see him; you can say I order him to come to the Red House between eight and nine next Monday.”

“Be you a fule?  Who’s he, to come at your bidding?”

“He’s a—­well, no matter.  You’ve got enough to trouble you.  But I think he will come.  Tell him that I know where he was during the autumn and winter of the year that I returned home from Africa.  Tell him I know where he came from to marry you.  Tell him the grey suit of clothes reached the owner safely—­remember, the grey suit of clothes.  That will refresh his memory.  Then I think he will come fast enough and let me have the truth concerning this brat.  If he refuses, I shall take steps to see justice done.”