Anne Caspar looked at him sharply.
"Are you tellin the tale, Alfred?"
Her son looked up fiercely.
"Why ain't he come home then?—Answer that."
"He did come home Saturday same as usual to take dad a walk."
"That's his cunning—to bluff you he wasn't out," jeered Alf. "He's lodging in Borough Lane. Has been ten days past. Mrs. Ticehurt told the Reverend Spink. If he done nothing he ain't ashamed of, why not come home?"
To do her justice, Anne Caspar was convinced against her will; but subsequent cogitation caused her to accept Alfred's story as true.
She felt that Ernie had deceived her. Why had he not told her that he was out when he came as usual on Saturday for his dad?
Yet in reality the answer was very simple. It was that Ernie chose to keep his troubles to himself.
Thereafter mother and son, by tacit consent, avoided each other in the steep streets of Old Town; and when Ernie called next Saturday he found the kitchen-door locked against him.