“It’s me,” he said humbly.
She motioned to him to go further off, and then she followed him outside until they both stood in the full moonlight. She was trembling.
“Ye ’adn’t no call to come round ’ere at this time o’ night,” said she in her old defiant tone—but her voice was low, for, stirred as she was, she still remembered the sleeping babe.
“Nor I didn’t mean to,” said he, nowise offended and still apologetic. “But I see’d ye hushin’ the brat, and I wondered what was up.”
“It’s Mrs. Barnes’s brat,” said she, a trifle coldly. “It’s sick, and I’m mindin’ it for ’er. She ain’t fit to ’ave a child of ’er own.” She said it almost roughly, and then lapsed into silence.
Martin sighed, and stood considering.
“It ain’t Mrs. Barnes’s brat,” said he at last.
She looked at him quickly.
“It ain’t Mrs. Barnes’s?” repeated she, puzzled. “Why, o’ course it is! I fetched it to-night.” Then a quick suspicion of his possible suspicion crossing her mind she said, in a voice in which shame and anger strangely wrestled: “Who’s do you think it is?”
But he had no glimmering of her thought, and said in the same humble tone as before: