She just checked herself from saying, “as you are.”
Mr Roberts passed his fingers through his hair, in a style which said, as plainly as words, that he was about at his wits’ end. Perhaps he had not far to go to reach that locality.
“Good lack!” he said. “Dear heart!—well-a-day!”
“She will be safe with me,” said her aunt, “for a time at least. And if danger draw near there also, I can send her thence to certain friends of mine in a remote part amongst the mountains, where a priest scarce cometh once in three years. And ere that end, God may work changes in this world.”
“Well, if it must be—”
“It must be, Tom; and it shall be for the best.”
“It had been better I had wist nought thereof. They shall be sure to question me.”
Mrs Collenwood looked with a smile of pitying contempt on the man who was weaker than herself. The contempt predominated at first: then it passed into pity.
“Thou shalt know nought more than now, Tom,” she said quietly. “Go thou up, and get thee a-bed, but leave the key of the wicket-gate on this table.”
“I would like to have heard you had gat safe away,” said poor Mr Roberts, feeling in his pockets for the key.