“I think ye might make shift to see,” said she angrily. “O’ course a girl don’t want to go a-talkin’ of it.” She caught her breath, but added quickly in the same tone as before: “For ye could ha’ knowed I shouldn’t be such a cheat as not to tell—when ye was goin’ to be’ave honourable to me.”
He stood there full half a minute, gazing at her as one dazed. Then he muttered: “How was I to guess?” and dropped his eyes.
He could hear her breathing hard, but she said no more, and after a while he asked suddenly:
“Where is ’e? ’Ave ’e deserted ye—the sc——”
She interrupted him. “’E’s dead,” she said quickly. And then she added, half whimpering: “’E said ’e would ha’ wed me, and p’r’aps ’e would. Anyways it’s too late now.”
“And the brat?” asked he in a dull voice.
She moved her head restlessly, looking out to the rosy west. Then dropping her voice to a whisper, she murmured softly:
“It’s dead too.”
He was awed involuntarily and answered nothing. He did not even dare look at her face, but he could see by the rise and fall of her shoulders that she was crying.
“Them as know I bore ’im,” she continued presently in an excited way, “they say as I ought to thank my stars ’e’s dead and buried and can’t tell no tales. That’s all they knows about it. They didn’t never lose a child, them folk didn’t! What if ’e ’ad ha’ told tales o’ my shame? I’d ha’ put up with that, and willing, so as I’d ’ad ’im to work for.”