Esther did not answer, and Jim looked inquiringly as he reached across the table for the matches. The decisive moment had arrived, and Mrs. Saunders said—
"Esther ain't a-going back; leastways—"
"Not going back! You don't mean that she ain't contented in her situation—that she 'as—"
"Esther ain't going back no more," Mrs. Saunders answered, incautiously.
"Look ee 'ere, Jim—"
"Out with it, old woman—no 'umbug! What is it all about? Ain't going back to 'er sitooation, and where she 'as been treated like that—just look at the duds she 'as got on."
The evening was darkening rapidly, and the firelight flickered over the back of the toy dogs piled up on the dresser. Jim had lit his pipe, and the acrid and warm odour of quickly-burning tobacco overpowered the smell of grease and the burnt skin of the baked potato, a fragment of which remained on the plate; only the sickly flavour of drying paste was distinguishable in the reek of the short black clay which the man held firmly between his teeth. Esther sat by the fire, her hands crossed over her knees, no signs of emotion on her sullen, plump face. Mrs. Saunders stood on the other side of Esther, between her and the younger children, now quarrelling among themselves, and her face was full of fear as she watched her husband anxiously.
"Now, then, old woman, blurt it out!" he said. "What is it? Can it be the girl 'as lost her sitooation—got the sack? Yes, I see that's about the cut of it. Her beastly temper! So they couldn't put up with it in the country any more than I could mesel'. Well, it's 'er own look-out! If she can afford to chuck up a place like that, so much the better for 'er. Pity, though; she might 'ave put me up to many a good thing."
"It ain't that, Jim. The girl is in trouble."
"Wot do yer say? Esther in trouble? Well, that's the best bit I've heard this long while. I always told ye that the religious ones were just the same as the others—a bit more hypocritical, that's all. So she that wouldn't 'ave nothing to do with such as was Mrs. Dunbar 'as got 'erself into trouble! Well I never! But 'tis just what I always suspected. The goody-goody sort are the worst. So she 'as got 'erself into trouble! Well, she'll 'ave to get 'erself out of it."
"Now, Jim, dear, yer mustn't be 'ard on 'er; she could tell a very different story if she wished it, but yer know what she is. There she sits like a block of marble, and won't as much as say a word in 'er own defence."