Without looking up, she murmured:
“Some have been dismissed; the others are working again all right.”
“All right!”
She looked up then so pitifully that he did not ask her anything more. But the news put him back a week. And she was in despair. The day he got up again he began afresh:
“When are the assizes?”
“The 7th of August.”
“Has anybody been to see Bob Tryst?”
“Yes; Aunt Kirsteen has been twice.”
Having been thus answered, he was quiet for a long time. She had slipped again out of her chair to kneel beside him; it seemed the only place from which she could find courage for her answers. He put his hand, that had lost its brown, on her hair. At that she plucked up spirit to ask:
“Would you like me to go and see him?”