’Can you stop—­can you sit down for a moment?  I have something to say to you, if you would give up that everlasting walk, walk, walk.’

He sat down instantly, on a chair against the wall.

’I want to speak to you about Betsy.  She says she must leave us; that her lover’s death has so affected her spirits she can’t give her heart to her work.’

‘Very well.  I suppose other cooks are to be met with.’

’That’s so like a man.  It’s not merely the cooking, it is that she knows all the ways of the house.  Besides, she tells me something about your friend Miss Hale.’

‘Miss Hale is no friend of mine.  Mr. Hale is my friend.’

’I am glad to hear you say so, for if she had been your friend, what Betsy says would have annoyed you.’

‘Let me hear it,’ said he, with the extreme quietness of manner he had been assuming for the last few days.

’Betsy says, that the night on which her lover—­I forget his name—­for she always calls him “he”——­’

‘Leonards.’

’The night on which Leonards was last seen at the station—­when he was last seen on duty, in fact—­Miss Hale was there, walking about with a young man who, Betsy believes, killed Leonards by some blow or push.’

‘Leonards was not killed by any blow or push.’

‘How do you know?’

’Because I distinctly put the question to the surgeon of the Infirmary.  He told me there was an internal disease of long standing, caused by Leonards’ habit of drinking to excess; that the fact of his becoming rapidly worse while in a state of intoxication, settled the question as to whether the last fatal attack was caused by excess of drinking, or the fall.’

‘The fall!  What fall?’

‘Caused by the blow or push of which Betsy speaks.’

‘Then there was a blow or push?’

‘I believe so.’

‘And who did it?’

’As there was no inquest, in consequence of the doctor’s opinion, I cannot tell you.’

‘But Miss Hale was there?’

No answer.

‘And with a young man?’

Still no answer.  At last he said:  ’I tell you, mother, that there was no inquest—­no inquiry.  No judicial inquiry, I mean.’

’Betsy says that Woolmer (some man she knows, who is in a grocer’s shop out at Crampton) can swear that Miss Hale was at the station at that hour, walking backwards and forwards with a young man.’

’I don’t see what we have to do with that.  Miss Hale is at liberty to please herself.’

‘I’m glad to hear you say so,’ said Mrs. Thornton, eagerly.  ’It certainly signifies very little to us—­not at all to you, after what has passed! but I—­I made a promise to Mrs. Hale, that I would not allow her daughter to go wrong without advising and remonstrating with her.  I shall certainly let her know my opinion of such conduct.’

‘I do not see any harm in what she did that evening,’ said Mr. Thornton, getting up, and coming near to his mother; he stood by the chimney-piece with his face turned away from the room.