He knew all about that loss.
'I've lost nought, sir; thank God my good name's my own, and not gone like some folk's; but I'm bound to give notice, sir, not having fault to find, being as good a master as ever stepped. But seeing the missus is going—'
'The missus?'
'Ah. The mother as God give you, sir, the very next time the trailer goes by, and the letter wrote and all. And when she goes, I go. For I've kep' myself respectable, and I'll serve no light woman, nor yet live in a house give over to sin.'
Edward saw Martha in a new light, as he now saw all things.
'What a filthy mind you have, Martha!' he said in a strange, weary voice. 'The minds of all respectable people are obscene. You are a bad woman!'
But Martha, setting up a shriek, had fled from the house. She told her brother that the master was mad, bewitched. She never entered the house again.
Edward found his mother in the kitchen.
'Mother, you are not really going?'
'Yes, Edward, unless'—a flicker of hope lit her eyes—'unless you have sent her away.'