“Had you carried her off ere now all had been well,” she said abruptly.
The boy winced, and something like a sob escaped him, but he turned and faced the old woman dry-eyed.
“May I take her?” he said again.
Nan made a gesture of impatience.
“Ay, take her, take her, boy, take her,” she said bitterly. “None of your carelessness can hurt her now.”
Joe, who had been watching the whole proceedings, now came forward and caught the old woman’s sleeve, and drew her away, then whispered:
“The lad is wonderful over-wrought, witch; leave taunting him.”
Nan looked at him fiercely, but she drew back, and the boy, stepping past her, picked up the light cold form of his love and, holding her in his arms, her blood-stained corsage pressed against his breast and her pretty head with its long black plaits lolling heavily on his shoulder, carried her quickly out of the room.
Sue began to cry softly, and Nan stood leaning on her spade and looking down into the fast whitening embers in the open grate.
In two or three minutes Hal came back; he was very pale and there was blood upon his hands and clothes. “I have left her to you, Mother,” he said rather unsteadily as he stood in the doorway looking across at the old woman.