‘Yes; he was weak and thin.’
‘Did he give you no account of himself for the time he had been silent?’
‘No.’
‘Did he tell you anything further concerning the girl?’
The dame’s head sank gradually.
‘Speak, good woman,’ said Fabricius; ‘no harm shall come of it.’
‘He said,’ Tibia continued, in a low voice, ‘that he told a lie when he came first with the child. She was not the child of a fellow-workman, but was nobly born, and had been stolen.’
‘Of course,’ said Afer ironically.
‘From whom, then, did he say she had been taken?’
‘From one called Balbus, a wealthy man; but he said this to deceive us—I know now there is no such person.’