"I've come up to speak with ye," continued the woman,—"It's pretty 'ard on me to be left in the ditch, with a man tumbling ye off his horse an' ridin' away where ye can't get at 'im!" She laughed harshly. "Ned's gone to 'Merriker!"
"Gone to America!"—Robin's voice rang out in sharp accents of surprise—"Ned Landon? Why, when did you hear that?"
"Just now—his own letter came with the carrier's cart—he left the town last night and takes ship from Southampton to-day. And why? Because Farmer Jocelyn gave him five hundred pounds to do it! So there's some real news for ye!"
"Five hundred pounds!" echoed Clifford—"My Uncle Hugo gave him five hundred pounds!"
"Ay, ye may stare!"—and the woman laughed again—"And the devil has taken it all,—except a five-pun' note which he sends to me to 'keep me goin',' he says. Like his cheek! I'm not his wife, that's true!—but I'm as much as any wife—an' there's the kid—"
Robin glanced round apprehensively at the open window.
"Hush!" he said—"don't talk so loud—"
"The dead can't hear," she said, scornfully—"an' Ned says in his letter that he's been sent off all on account of you an' your light o' love—Innocent, she's called—a precious 'innocent' SHE is!—an' that the old man has paid 'im to go away an' 'old his tongue! So it's all YOUR fault, after all, that I'm left with the kid to rub along anyhow;—he might ave married me in a while, if he'd stayed. I'm only Jenny o' Mill-Dykes now—just as I've always been—the toss an' catch of every man!—but I 'ad a grip on Ned with the kid, an' he'd a' done me right in the end if you an' your precious 'innocent' 'adn't been in the way—"
Robin made a quick stride towards her.
"Go out of this place!" he said, fiercely—"How dare you come here with such lies!"