“Well—” began the gossip, rather disconcerted, but ready to make the best of a bad business.
“Ah, it is all, I see,” interrupted Mitchell.
And with a nod of stolid indifference, he turned and strolled up the cottage path.
But Ned Mitchell, though he had no notion of being grateful for the old man’s information, was not long in making use of it. No sooner had the April evening closed in than he, having already found out Martha Lowndes’ dwelling, knocked at the door of a small, tumble-down cottage, where he was admitted at once by a woman who looked about fifty, and whose face was careworn and deeply furrowed.
“Martha Lowndes?” said Ned.
“Yes,” answered the woman, looking at him curiously.
“I thought you were younger.”
“I’m thirty-five,” said the woman, shortly. “You’re Ned Mitchell, I suppose. I’d forgotten you; but they told me you were about; so I suppose it’s you.”
“Right you are.”
“Come in, then.”