“You look so white. Are you ill, mamma?” and he went to put his arms round her, which was a mighty rare thing with him.
She trembled a good deal, and did not either embrace him or repel him. She only trembled.
After some time she recovered herself enough to say, in a voice and with a manner that impressed itself at once on this sharp boy: “Reginald, your nurse was quite right. Understand this: the man was your enemy—and mine; the words he said you must not say again. It would be like taking up dirt and flinging some on your own face and some on mine.”
“I won't do that,” said the boy, firmly. “Are you afraid of the man that you look so white?”
“A man with a woman's tongue—who can help fearing?”
“Don't you be afraid; as soon as I'm big enough, I'll kill him.”
Lady Bassett looked with surprise at the child, he uttered this resolve with such a steady resolution.
She drew him to her, and kissed him on the forehead.
“No, Reginald,” said she; “we must not shed blood; it is as wicked to kill our enemies as to kill any one else. But never speak to him, never even listen to him; if he tries to speak to you, run away from him, and don't let him—he is our enemy.”
That same day she went to Mrs. Meyrick, to examine her. But she found the boy had told her all there was to tell.