“Dear anwyl!” said Jane pitifully, thinking of sickness or of death. “Is it that bad?”
“Aye,” he muttered, looking around wildly, and then at his watch; “there’s just time to catch the narrow-gauge to Qwyllyn. Och, goodbye!” And he was gone.
With a sense of real relief, Jane Elin stood still a moment. It was that, after all, which had been worrying him. Why had he not told her before that his mother was ill?
She walked thoughtfully toward the kitchen. “Keturah, is she very ill?”
“Who?”
“The master’s mother; he told me to tell you he’d gone to catch the narrow-gauge. Is she?”
Keturah’s eyes widened and contracted as she said, “Aye, very.”
“Och, ’tis too bad! I must go to him.”
“Nay, nay, there’s no need, Miss Williams, he’ll manage somehow.”