"Ah!" said Jarman, sympathetically, while Frank still looked suspicious. "And the name brings sad memories to you?"
Miss Cork nodded. "I'm a married woman," she said softly, "but my husband left me to starve--with the child, and--and--"
"And the child died?"
"No?" she burst out fiercely. "The child was stolen!"
"By whom?"
Miss Cork stopped, and her fingers worked convulsively, as though they were clutching at a throat. "I wish I knew--I wish I knew!" she said, savagely, and the expression of her lean face surprised Jarman, who had always considered her an apathetic woman. Perhaps his looks warned her that she was betraying too much of her unknown past, for she pulled herself up with a faint titter.
"I'm a Billericay woman myself," she began, when Jarman cut her short.
"That's nonsense!" he said sternly. "You know you are not."
"I've said all I have to say," said Miss Cork, quite irrelevantly, "and if you aren't pleased, Mr. Jarman, I'll go."
"I don't want you to go, and I ask you nothing," he replied.