Chapter Forty.
A bomb falling in their midst could scarcely have caused a greater sensation than was produced by Prudence’s request. The effect of her speech and of her action was electrical. Only the child remained unmoved; and he, reassured doubtless by the quiet composure of her bearing amid the general tension, which he realised without understanding it, and the sweet gentleness of her voice, ceased his plaintive whimpering and stared at her with round eyes filled with wonderment, and forgot his fear.
Bessie Clapp stared also, a solemn light in her dark eyes, and with a face grown tender and womanly, with all the hardness gone from its look. But William Graynor, flushed with anger, strode forward to intervene; and the old man, looking with disfavour upon the grouping, uttered: “No, no!” in tones of sharp protest, and put out a hand and touched Prudence’s sleeve.
“The child will be all right,” he said. “Leave this to me.”
She turned to him with a wistful smile.
“He’s nobody’s bairn,” she said. “Nobody wants him—except me.”
“Your husband wouldn’t like it,” he remonstrated. “You have to consider him. Take the child away,” he added, addressing Bessie Clapp. “I will communicate with you later.”
Prudence gave the boy into his mother’s charge and walked with them to the door.
“If I can arrange it, are you willing to give him up to me entirely?” she asked.