"I don't believe it," said Marie, speaking now in English. "If he'd been your brother, you wouldn't have trusted him to a stranger like me, or you'd have come back sooner to fetch him."
"Well, anyhow he's my half-brother," said Tad, "and how was I to know you was goin' to run off with him? You looked honest enough, and I thought you was so."
"Does anyone here know about your bein' the boy that I—I—?"
"No—only my chum, Phil Bates. He knows all about me."
"Not my father and mother?"
"No, no one else."
"Good? Then hold your tongue about it still, and I'll make it worth your while," said Marie. "I love the child and he loves me, and I mean to bring him up as my own. Has he got a mother livin'?"
"He had, seven months ago," replied Tad, "and I s'pose she ain't dead yet. That sort in general makes out to live," added the lad with a sniff of disgust.
"And you—how came you here?"
"That story's too long to tell," replied Tad, not over civilly, for he was chafed at the woman's manner, and the attitude she had assumed as regarded the child.