"Come, come!" he demanded, irritably—"What did I say?"
She looked at him candidly.
"You talked mostly about 'Tom o' the Gleam,'"—she answered—"That was a poor gypsy well known in these parts. He had just one little child left to him in the world—its mother was dead. Some rich lord driving a motor car down by Cleeve ran over the poor baby and killed it—and Tom——"
"Tom tracked the car to Blue Anchor, where he found the man who had run over his child and killed him!" said Helmsley, with grim satisfaction—"I saw it done!"
Mary shuddered.
"I saw it done!" repeated Helmsley—"And I think it was rightly done! But—I saw Tom himself die of grief and madness—with his dead child in his arms—and that!—that broke something in my heart and brain and made me think God was cruel!"
She bent over him, and arranged his pillows more comfortably.
"I knew Tom,"—she said, presently, in a soft voice—"He was a wild creature, but very kind and good for all that. Some folks said he had been born a gentleman, and that a quarrel with his family had made him take to the gypsy life—but that's only a story. Anyway his little child—'kiddie'—as it used to be called, was the dearest little fellow in the world—so playful and affectionate!—I don't wonder Tom went mad when his one joy was killed! And you saw it all, you say?"
"Yes, I saw it all!" And Helmsley, with a faint sigh half closed his eyes as he spoke—"I was tramping from Watchett,—and the motor passed me on my way, but I did not see the child run over. I meant to get a lodging at Blue Anchor—and while I was having my supper at the public house Tom came in,—and—and it was all over in less than fifteen minutes! A horrible sight—a horrible, horrible sight! I see it now!—I shall never forget it!"
"Enough to make you ill, poor dear!" said Mary, gently—"Don't think of it now! Try and sleep a little. You mustn't talk too much. Poor Tom is dead and buried now, and his little child with him—God rest them both! It's better he should have died than lived without anyone to love him in the world."