"Your singing attracted me," I began, taking off my hat to her.
"Yes?" she replied, evidently not at all anxious to come to my relief in the awkward position I had sought.
"It was very beautiful——"
"And it is finished," she interrupted. There was a slight tone of contempt in her voice as she thus gave me to understand that my presence was unwelcome. But, as a student of psychology, I was not to be so easily moved from my design of "investigating the case" before me.
"The Rev. John Trusler is dead." I paused awhile to see how she would be affected. Then, as she gave no sign of emotion, I went on, "He hanged himself a few days after you left him."
"My God!" she exclaimed, putting her hand to her side and seating herself on the fallen tree.
The child, who had been clinging to his mother's dress and regarding me with round, brown eyes, began to cry when he saw his mother's sudden emotion. She took him up in her arms and cuddled his head to her bosom, saying in the Padhani patois, "Mea mithoo, mea mithoo! hush, my butcha."
In the silence that ensued after the child had been quieted there came the regular stroke of a woodman's axe, and presently the refrain of a Padhani song sung by a man.
When the woman had regained her calm, she looked up at me somewhat defiantly and said, "What business had they to come between me and my jungle mother? What right had they to impose moral shackles on one who was above their petty codes?"
"The Fishers were moved by kindness, surely; they educated you, and Christianized you, and through them you met and married an honorable man."