“But it was all yours by rights——”
“I care nothing at all about that!”
“The dresses and things, as well as the box itself, were worth something. Not much, perhaps—still, something. And then there were four pounds and some silver which I'd never touched. Here they are—four pounds.”
She got up and laid them in a row on the tablecloth under the lamp. The others had risen also; and John William, for one, had his eyes fixed upon the little roll of paper in her right hand. It was a roll of one-pound notes. She began to lay them one by one upon the table, counting aloud as she did so.
“One, two, three, four, five, six—-”
“Stop a moment,” said David, trembling. “How did you come by them, Missy?”
“Seven, eight. Didn't I tell you that I've been working all this time upon a farm? Nine——”
“Ah, yes, you did.”
There had been a few explanations—a very few—when John William had first brought her in. Then dry clothes, then supper, then silence. It must be remembered that the shadow of death hung over the farm.
“Ten. I was there thirty-three weeks last Saturday. Eleven. They gave me ten shillings a week, and they found me—twelve—in food and clothes. I had things to put up with—thirteen—but nothing I couldn't bear. I was thankful you'd taught me to milk here. Fourteen, fifteen. I was so! Sixteen, and that's the lot. Sixteen and four's twenty. Twenty pound I got out of you, Mr. Tees-dale, because I couldn't resist it when you said what you may recollect saying as you drove me back into Melbourne that first day. I never meant to pay you back; I wasn't half sure that I'd ever let you see me again. I don't say I should have done it if I'd known you'd go and pawn your watch for me; still I did do you out of the twenty pounds, and I meant to do you out of them for good and all. But here they are.”