"I'm not a boy now," he said. "That's put away and done with."
"No," she answered, "that's true, my dear; but you've lived an innocent life, an'—an' never done no wrong—no more than you did when you was one. And your face was so altered."
Her voice died away into a silence which, somehow, neither of them could break.
It was Granny Dixon who revealed the truth in its barest form. Perhaps no man nor woman in Broxton knew more of it than this respectable ancient matron. Haworth and his iniquities had been the spice of her later life. The fact that his name was being mentioned in a conversation never escaped her; she discovered it as if by magic and invariably commanded that the incident under discussion be repeated at the top of the reciter's voice for her benefit, occasionally somewhat to the confusion of the honest matron in question.
How it had happened that she had not betrayed all to Mrs. Haworth at once was a mystery to remain unsolved. During the little woman's visits to the cottage, Mrs. Briarley existed in a chronic condition of fear and trembling.
"She'll be out wi' it some o' these days, mark me," she would quaver to Janey. "An' th' Lord knows, I would na' be theer fur nowt when she does."
But she did not do it at first. Mrs. Briarley had a secret conviction that the fact that she did not do so was due entirely to iniquity. She had seen her sit peering from under her brows at their guest as the simple creature poured forth her loving praise of her son, and at such times it was always Mrs. Briarley's province to repeat the conversation for her benefit.
"Aye," Mrs. Dixon would comment with an evil smile, "that's him! That's Haworth! He's a noice chap—is Haworth. I know him."
Mrs. Haworth learned in time to fear her and to speak timidly in her presence, rarely referring to the subject of her boy's benefactions.
"Only as it wouldn't be nat'ral," she said once to Mrs. Briarley, "I should think she was set agen him."