"And you sleep with her?"
"Yes," she said and, picking a spill of paper from the hearth, she lighted it and held it out to him. He put his hand round hers and did not let it go until his pipe was lit, and then he puffed thoughtfully for a time.
"I've never been up your stairs except when I carried her to bed," he said, and every muscle in her body contracted sharply. She flogged her mind to start her tongue on a light word.
"Not—not when you were little? Before we came here?"
He laughed. "I wouldn't go near the place. We were all scared of old Pinderwell. They used to say he walked. I was on the moor the night you came, I remember, and saw the house all lighted up, and I ran home, saying he'd set the place on fire. I was supposed to be in my bed, and I had my ears well boxed."
"Who boxed them?"
"Mrs. Biggs, of course. She has hands like flails. I—What's the matter?"
"Is she at the farm still?"
"Mrs. Biggs?"
"Yes."