"I've found out that you and that young scoundrel have been robbing and cheating me in a way that would bring me to the workhouse in another year. I have found out that he has forged my name for nearly a thousand pounds, and that you've helped him. I find that you yourself have robbed me of hundreds of pounds, and that I have been blinded, and cozened, and hoodwinked by two that I kept from the workhouse, and treated as well as I treated myself. That's what I have found out, gipsy."
"Well?" was all Madge said, standing before him with her arms folded.
"So I say," said Hawker; "it is very well. The mother to the streets, and the boy to the gallows."
"You wouldn't prosecute him, William; your own son?"
"No, I shan't," he replied;—"but the Bank will."
"And couldn't you stop it?"
"I could. But if holding up my little finger would save him, I wouldn't do it."
"Oh, William," she cried, throwing herself on her knees; "don't look like that. I confess everything; visit it on me, but spare that boy."
"You confess, do you?" he said. "Get up. Get out of my house; you shan't stay here."
But she would not go, but, hanging round him, kept saying, "Spare the boy, William, spare the boy!" over and again, till he struck her in his fury, and pulled her towards the door.