“And is that what has been breakin' yer heart all these months ye lived with us?”
Felix moved uneasily. “Yes. There has been nothing else.”
“And she's the same one ye've been a-trampin' the streets to find?”
Felix bowed his head in assent.
“And ye kep' all this from me?” she asked, as a mother might reproach her son.
“You could have done nothing.”
“I could have comforted ye. That would have been somethin'. Did she leave ye?”
Again Felix bowed his head in answer. The spoken words would only add to his pain.
“For another man, was it?—Yes, I see—you twice her age, and she a chit of a child. Ye can't do much for that kind once they get their heads set—no matter how good ye are to them. And I suppose that when I found her that night on the door-steps and brought her into the kitchen, he'd turned her into the street. That's it, isn't it? And then she got to stealin' to keep from starvin'?”
“Yes, I suppose so—I do not know. I only know she is a criminal. That is shame enough.”