“Miss Hetty—­” he managed to say, and was not ashamed that his voice shook.

She did not seem to hear.

“Miss Hetty—­” His voice was louder and he saw that she heard.  “There’s a deal I’d like to say, but the things that come uppermost are all foolish.  F’r instance, what I most want to say is that I’m desperate sorry for you.  And—­and here’s another thing, though ’tis even foolisher.  When I came to speak to your father, day before yestiddy, the first thing he did was to pay me down every penny he owed me—­not that I was thinking of it for one moment—­”

She had turned her head away at first, yet not as if refusing to listen:  but now from a sudden stiffening of her shoulders, he saw that he was offending.

“Nay, now,” he persisted, “but you must hear me finish.  I want you to know what I did with it.  I went home with it jingling in my pocket, and called out my father and spread it on the counter before him.  ‘Look at it,’ I said, and his eyes fairly glistened.  ‘And now,’ I said, ’hear me tell you that neither you nor I touches a penny of it.’  I took him up the hill to the cathedral and crammed it into a box there.  For the touch of it burned my fingers till I got rid of it, same as it burned your father’s.  The old man fairly capered to see me and cried out that I must be mad.  ‘Think so?’ said I, ‘then there’s worse to come.’  I led him home again, went to my drawerful of savings, and counted out the like sum to a penny.  ‘That’s towards a chair for her,’ said I; ’and that’s towards a sofy; and there’s for this, and there’s for that.  If she will condescend to the likes of me, like a queen she shall be treated while I have fingers to work.’  That’s what I said, Miss Hetty:  and that’s what I want to tell you, foolish as you’ll think it, and rough belike.”

She turned suddenly upon him with swimming eyes.

“’Condescend’?” she echoed.

He nodded.  “That’s so:  and like dirt you may treat me.  You did once, you know.  I’d like it to go on.”

She spread her hands vaguely.  “Why will you be kind to me?  When—­ when—­”

“When you’d far liefer have every excuse to hate the sight of me.  Oh, I understand!  Well, I’d even give you that, if it pleased you, and I could.”

She looked at him now, long and earnestly.  Her next question was a strange one and had little connection with her thoughts.

“Did you sign that letter?”

“What letter?”

“The one you sent to father.”

He fingered his jaw in a puzzled way.  “I never sent any letter to your father.  Writing’s none so easy to me, though sorry I am to say it.”

“Then it must have been—­” Light broke on her, but she paused and suppressed Patty’s name.

“I like you,” she went on, “because you speak honestly with me.”

“Come, that’s better.”