"And if the old man comes to-day what do you suppose I'm to say to him?"
"There never was a time yet when you didn't know what to say, Miss
Bessie."
"It's all very well. Why should I be mixed up in it? I shall just say nothing."
"Then he can sit and look at you, and that's what he likes."
Bessie's eyes glinted: "But if he likes it—and he has always acted as if he did—then why? why? why—?" She spread out the palms of her plump, white little hands, making the dramatic inquiry of Emily, who, with a black rag dipped in whitening, was polishing the "brights," as she called her tin and pewter ware.
"Ah," Emily said; "he's one of your cautious ones, Boult is. Them that are young and fascinatin' aren't the best of housekeepers, per'aps."
Bessie stood silent for a minute, watching the vigorous rubbing of a dish-cover. "You go and change your frock," Emily said, glancing up at her. "Put on that black-and-white muslin you look your nicest in—"
"I ought to wear all black for a year, Emily."
"You put on your black and white," coaxed Emily.
Mrs. Day went to Franky's grave as had been foretold, but went a long way round to it, going first for that walk by the river, which the child and she had been wont to take together. Finding that particular spot on the riverbank which had been so much in her thoughts since Mr. Boult had made his offer, she sat down there with the deliberate intention of deciding which course to take, out of the three open to her. To be turned, with her children, homeless and penniless upon the world; to become Boult's wife; to drown in the river.