Mrs. Cushion sighed. "I suppose 'e'll 'ave to be told, an' you'd tell him more straight-forward nor I could. It's all so mixed up like. You see, them boys ain't never done no 'arm to any one—they so far off and all—an' I will say this, miss, they've give me a sort of 'old over young growin' chaps I wouldn't 'ave 'ad without 'em. Many's the young chap as 'ave listened to a word from me about drink and the like, because 'e's thought, 'There, she knows as it's only natural—she's got some of 'er own—she won't be too 'ard on me'—and they did like me, I knows they did—they did indeed, miss."
I thought of the hobbledehoys and the shy, furtive presents of eggs and honey and tight little bunches of flowers, and an occasional rabbit—how come by it were perhaps better not to inquire—and the inarticulate lingering, the waiting for intelligence they were too shy to ask for—I thought of these things, and I knew that Mrs. Cushion spoke the truth.
"Now, you, miss," the tired, whispering voice went on, "if I may say so, you looks unmarried; and yet, I do believe as you understands."
"I do, I do, Mrs. Cushion."
"It seemed some'ow as if it 'ad to be, and yet there's no one 'ates lies and bedanglements more than me. An' there I've been and gone and done it myself. But I ain't going to own it!" Mrs. Cushion added almost fiercely. "Not if I 'ad to let Snig's an' leave these parts. I'd far rather die."
By this time she was as flushed as she had been pale before, and I had to tell her she mustn't talk any more, but leave it all till the morning, when we'd consult the vicar.
For about an hour I sat by her bed, till her more regular breathing showed me she had dropped off into the sleep of sheer exhaustion.
In the morning I sent a note to the vicar by one of the solicitous young men, and by ten o'clock he was in my sitting-room, while the parish nurse was getting Mrs. Cushion's room ready upstairs.
I told the story very briefly, and as far as possible in her own words; and the vicar, who had been sitting at the table facing the light, suddenly got up and stood by the fireplace, his elbow on the mantel-shelf, shading his eyes with his hand and almost turning his back upon me.
"And if she can't keep her children, she won't get well," I concluded.