With a billy, billy, billy,
Billy blow.
They kept this up for a couple of hours in the wind and the rain, until at last with three groans and hoots they broke up and trailed off into the darkness.
René asked Lotta next morning what they might be doing, and she told him that the man in the cottage was an unpopular character who had been annoying and molesting a girl in the village.
“That is public opinion. They wouldn’t have minded if he had been a popular man, or a rich man. They would have blamed the girl in that case.”
Lotta was staying on for a day or two. René took Cathleen back to London. He told her he was going to his work and Mitcham Mews and Ann.
“You heard what Lotta said?”
“About the noise last night and the girl?”
“Yes. I think it’s true. Ann will be blamed by her own class.”
“Would you like me to go and see her?”