Wark raised her red eyes. 'Of course, miss, if I'm wrong——' Her knuckly hand slid down from the brass bar, and she came round to the side of the bed with an unmistakable eagerness in her face. 'If you're going to get married, I don't see as I could leave ye.'
The lady's lips twitched with an instant's silent laughter, but there was something else than laughter in her eyes.
'Oh, I can buy you off, can I? If I give you my word—if to save you from need to try the great experiment, I'll sacrifice myself——'
'I wouldn't like to see you make a sacrifice, miss,' Wark said, with perfect gravity. 'But'—as though reconsidering—'you wouldn't feel it so much, I dare say, after the child was there.'
They looked at one another.
'If it's children you yearn for, my poor Wark, you've waited too long, I'm afraid.'
'Oh, no, miss.' She spoke with a fatuous confidence.
'Why, you must be fifty.'
'Fifty-three, miss. But'—she met her mistress's eye unflinching—'Bunting—he's the market gardener—he's been married before. He's got three girls and two boys.'