'I do,' was the prompt reply. 'My husband bought the place when Peter Palmer died four years ago. Are you a stranger in these parts?'
'Yes; that is, I knew the place once, years ago—ten years ago.'
'Ah, there's many changes in ten years! I can scarce believe it is twelve since I married, only for the children,' looking fondly down on a crowd of little boys and girls who were under the care of a tall girl of ten, 'only the children tell me it's true.'
'Do you happen to know where the Miss Palmers are? Are they—married?'
'One is married to the Squire at Rock House—a grand match it was. But she was a pretty, notable girl, and nursed him, so I hear, in an illness; but it was all before we came from the other side of Bath.'
'What do you mean? What is the Squire's name?'
'Bayfield, of course, of Rock House, six or seven miles off Binegar way. The other sister lives with Mrs Henderson, who had a seizure just about the time Farmer Palmer died. She was a fine ladyish person, and things would have gone to wrack and ruin if Miss Palmer had not gone to her. She has been like a mother to the girls, and taught them lots of things. Two are out in service, and one in Mrs Hannah More's school.' Jack turned away, the woman calling after him,—
'Come in and rest, sir, and take a cup of cider. You look very tired.'
But Jack shook his head and set off at a quick pace towards his mother's house.
No one recognised him; he was bronzed with exposure to the air, and his face was deeply lined with care, so that he looked prematurely old. His thick curly hair was streaked with grey, and his huge frame was a little bent, as he leaned heavily on his stick. The news he had heard filled his heart with strangely mixed feelings. The Squire was alive, the great burden of manslaughter, which had lain so heavily upon him for ten long years of exile, was removed. But Bryda had married him.