He could think of nothing else to say. He was not a religious man. He was, on the contrary, a worldly, a careless, perhaps even a somewhat hard man; and he had no words of ready comfort and sympathy at command. But he was moved, and his emotion showed itself in his voice.
"Alas! God did not want him so much as we wanted him," was the naïve reply.
The mother, who till now had lain huddled on the floor, apparently unconscious of all that was going forward, here suddenly lifted up her head.
"The good God and our Blessed Lady had him always," she said, hoarsely. "He was in their hands from the hour when I brought him into the world, and he is not more theirs in heaven than he was theirs on earth. But they did not call him from us. It is not God but man who has bereaved us, and left us desolate. Behold!"
And with this she rose to her feet, turned down the sheet, and uncovered the wound—just such a tiny puncture, with just such a ghastly halo spreading round it, as Hugh Girdlestone had awful cause to remember.
He could not bear to look upon it. He shuddered and turned his face aside.
"Is there—is there anyone whom you suspect?" he faltered.
"No one."
"Have you an enemy?"
The baker shook his head.