‘A father, ma’am, would be the savin’ o’ that lad.’

Mrs. Haddon dropped her work again and her dark eyes snapped; but Ephraim Shine had lifted one boot on to his knee, and was examining a hole in the sole with bird-like curiosity.

‘When I think my boy needs special savin’ I’ll send for you, Mr. Shine—­

‘It’d be a grave responsibility, a trial an’ a constant triberlation, but I offer myself.  I’ll be a father to your boy, ma’am, barrin’ objections.’

‘An’ what is meant by that, Mr. Shine?’

The widow, flushed of face, with her work thrust forward in her lap and a steely light in her fine eyes, regarded the searcher steadily.

‘An offer of marriage to yourself is meant, Mrs. Haddon, ma’am.’

Shine’s eyes came sliding up under his brows till they encountered those of Mrs. Haddon; then they fell again suddenly.  The little widow tapped the table impressively with her thimbled finger, and her breast heaved.

‘Do you remember Frank Hardy, Ephraim Shine?’

‘To be certain I do.’

’Well, man, you may have heard what Frank Hardy was to me before he went to—­to—­’

‘To gaol, Mrs. Haddon?  Yes.’

’Listen to this, then.  What Frank Hardy was to me before he is still, only more dear, an’ I’d as lief everybody in Waddy knew it.’

‘A gaol-bird an’ a thief he is.’

‘He is in gaol, an’ that may make a gaol-bird of him, but he is no thief.  ‘Twas you got him into gaol, an’ now you dare do this.’

Shine’s slate-coloured eyes slid up and fell again.

‘’Twas done in the way o’ duty.  He don’t deny I found the gold on him.’

‘No, but he denies ever havin’ seen it in his life before, an’ I believe him.’

‘An’ about that cunnin’ little trap in his boot-heel, ma’am?’

‘It was what he said it was—­the trick of some enemy.’

Mr. Shine lifted his right boot as if trying its weight, groaned and set it down again, tried the other, and said: 

‘An’ who might the enemy ha’ been, d’ye think?’

I do not know, but—­I am Frank Hardy’s friend, and you may not abuse him in my house.’

‘You have a chance o’ a respectable man, missus.’  Mrs. Haddon had risen from her seat and was standing over her visitor, a buxom black-gowned little fury.

‘An’ I tell him to go about his business, an’ that’s the way.’  The gesture the widow threw at her humble kitchen door was magnificent.  ’But stay,’ she cried, although the imperturbable Shine had not shown the slightest intention of moving.  ’You’ve heard I went with Frank’s mother to visit him in the gaol there at the city; p’r’aps you’re curious to know what I said.  Well, I’ll tell you, an’ you can tell all Waddy from yon platform in the chapel nex’ Sunday, if you like.  ‘Frank,’ I said, ‘you asked me to be your wife, an’ I haven’t answered.  I do now.  I’ll meet you at the prison door when you come out, if you please, an’ I’ll marry you straight away.’  Those were my very words, Mr. Superintendent, an’ I mean to keep to them.’