'Thi eyes is honester nor thi tongue,' Mrs Hatfield said, with a face full of trouble. 'Make thi tongue speak truth as well, lad, and tell me what tha knows. Tell me wheer shoo is.'
'If I had known you would have known too, long ago,' Richard answered.
'But tha hasn't told me a' tha knows e'en as 'tis.'
'I don't know anything,' Richard was beginning, when Mrs Hatfield clasped both her hands on his arm.
'Dick, Dick,' she said, 'tha's heerd o' her or tha's seen her. I've allus had a mother's heart for tha as well as for her, and now it's as if one o' my childer wouldn't help me to find t'other. What has tha heard? I see i' thi face 'twas Rowley. Eh, but I never thought the boy I nursed would ha' turned on them as loved him i' this fashion.'
The tears followed the words, which were not whispered, and the passers-by turned their heads wonderingly to look at the middle-aged countrywoman, with the basket, who was looking so earnestly and entreatingly into the face of the tall young medical student.
'Come in here,' he said, and led her into the waiting-room of the London Bridge Station, which was fortunately empty. She sat down and began to cry bitterly, while Richard stood helplessly looking at her.
'Don't cry,' he said; but she took no notice, and went on moaning to herself.
'Couldn't tha ha' stopped it?' she said, suddenly raising her tear-stained face. 'Tha couldst surely ha' stood i' the way o' such a sinful, cruel thing as that.'
'Good God, no!' cried Dick, losing control of his tongue at the sudden implication of himself in these charges; 'what could I do? I knew nothing of it till last October, and then I did the best I could.'