The elderly woman with the rough voice, who had not spoken since he whispered to her, now interposed with a kind of cowed fierceness.
'Don't go putting humbug into my child's head now, Mr. Falconer—'ticing her away from her home. Everybody knows my Nell's been an idiot since ever she was born. Poor child!'
'I ain't your child,' cried the girl, passionately. 'I ain't nobody's child.'
'You are God's child,' said Falconer, who stood looking on with his eyes shining, but otherwise in a state of absolute composure.
'Am I? Am I? You won't forget to send for me, sir?'
'That I won't,' he answered.
She turned instantly towards the woman, and snapped her fingers in her face.
'I don't care that for you,' she cried. 'You dare to touch me now, and I'll bite you.'
'Come, come, Nelly, you mustn't be rude,' said Falconer.
'No, sir, I won't no more, leastways to nobody but she. It's she makes me do all the wicked things, it is.'