"Don't 'ee worry, Leadville," soothed Mrs. Tom and who knows whether her words were accidental or chosen. "There's no mark o' Cain on 'ee, Lorrd be praised."
"Mark o' Cain!" he muttered and Mrs. Tom saw leap into his eyes a questioning terror.
"I expect you've scratched yourself somewhere," she said easily. "Take'n go and wash it off." Pouring hot water into a dipper she offered it to him and Leadville, treading delicately among the heaps of black material, went out. He had brought from Dark Head a clear simplicity of purpose, but now his mind was like a ruffled pool. "Mark o' Cain?" he muttered to himself as he went upstairs. "What do they knaw about it? It's all tommy-rot, they can't knaw anything, 'tis only what they'm surmisin'. Can't trust they women, their tongues is always waggin'. They'll ferret out the last rat that's in the mow."
As he put his hands into the dipper he noticed they were trembling and, with this, his caution began to reassert itself. The women must not be allowed to suspect that there was anything concealed. "If I don't take care," he admonished himself, "I shall find meself in a box. Pretty feller me, to take so much notice o' they. I've done more'n they'll ever bear to think on and 'ere I'm all twitchy because of their silly talk."
After washing his face he examined it in the toilet-glass for any sign of a hurt, but the skin was unbroken.
"I 'aven't cut meself," he said perplexedly, and suddenly the episode of the seal occurred to him. He laughed aloud. "Mark o' Cain indeed! And me, what don't believe in they old ideas! Iss, they'm too fanciful for our day o' livin'." He shook his heavy shoulders. "I mus' pull meself together. I must remember, only thing that's 'appened is that I've lost the missus—poor sawl."
In the room below the women had returned to their work of 'makin' up the mournin's.'
"'E seem rather cut up about it, not like 'e belong to be," commented Aunt Louisa.
"Well, what can 'ee expect," said Mrs. Brenton, "only lostin' 'is wife this mornin'? Can't expect for'm to be bright and cheerful!"
"I don't expect anything," said the old woman, "still you can't 'elp noticin' things."