'Now, whether,' pursued Herbert, 'he had used the child's moth-
er ill, or whether he had used the child's mother well, Provis
doesn't say; but, she had shared some four or five years of the
wretched life he described to us at this fireside, and he seems to
have felt pity for her, and forbearance towards her. Therefore,
fearing he should be called upon to depose about this destroyed
child, and so be the cause of her death, he hid himself (much as
he grieved for the child), kept himself dark, as he says, out of the
way and out of the trial, and was only vaguely talked of as a cer-
tain man called Abel, out of whom the jealousy arose. After the
acquittal she disappeared, and thus he lost the child, and the
child's mother.'

'I want to ask-----'

'A moment, my dear boy, and I have done. That evil genius,
Compeyson, the worst of scoundrels among many scoundrels,
knowing of his keeping out of the way at that time, and of his rea-
sons for doing so, of course afterwards held the knowledge over his
head as a means of keeping him poorer, and working him harder.
It was clear last night that this barbed the point of Provis's
animosity.'

'I want to know,' said I, 'and particularly, Herbert, whether he
told you when this happened?'

'Particularly? Let me remember, then, what he said as to that.
His expression was, "a round score o' year ago, and a'most directly
after I took up wi' Compeyson." How old were you when you
came upon him in the little churchyard?'

'I think in my seventh year.'

'Ay. It had happened some three or four years then, he said, and
you brought into his mind the little girl so tragically lost, who
would have been about your age.'

' Herbert,' said I, after a short silence, in a hurried way, 'can you
see me best by the light of the window, or the light of the fire?'

'By the firelight,' answered Herbert, coming close again.

'Look at me.'

'I do look at you, my dear boy.'

'Touch me.'

'I do touch you, my dear boy.'

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