When Sir Everard returned to the eating-room he found Pamela still on the settle, the child asleep on her lap. On the board beside her a half-finished bowl of bread and milk showed that she had been occupied with the worse than motherless babe, while he had attended to the last concerns of its doomed father. On the other side of the hearth, one elbow propped on the high mantelshelf, stood Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs. The old man’s entrance had evidently interrupted a conversation between the two lovers, of an interest so vital that both the faces now turned upon him were stamped with fierce emotion.
Sir Everard removed a chair from before the table and sat down on it facing the fire, and for a space no one spoke.
Pamela had cast the scarlet shawl across one shoulder so as to shade the child’s head from the light. Her hand patted and her knees swayed, rocking the infant sleeper.
“Poor little creature!” said Sir Everard at last.
The girl gave him a quick glance.
“I’ll keep her to-night. I’ve told the landlord I would, and I’d keep her always if I could.”
“’Tis a generous thought,” said the old gentleman, with a faint smile for the magnanimous impractibilities of youth, and as he smiled he was aware that Mr. Bellairs snapped his fingers and jerked his foot on the edge of irritable outburst.
Suddenly Pamela began to sob quickly under her breath; turned her head aside so that her tears should not fall on the little placid face.
“I’ve been a wicked girl! A wicked girl!”
“Hush!” cried Mr. Bellairs, and flung out his hand.