"I was locked out," she sobbed. "That is how he came to stay so late."
Bit by bit, with question and cross-questioning, it all came out: that Herbert Dare had been in the habit of paying stolen visits to the field, and that Anna had been in the habit of meeting him there. That she had gone in on this night just before ten, which was later than she had ever stayed out before: but, finding Hester had to go out for medicine for Patience, she had run to the field again to take a book to the prisoner; and that upon attempting to enter soon afterwards, she found the door locked, Hester having met the doctor's boy, and come back at once. She told it all, as simply and guilelessly as a child.
"What were you doing all that time? From ten o'clock until one in the morning?"
"I was sitting on the door-step, crying."
"Was the prisoner with you?"
"Yes. He stood by me part of the time, telling me not to be afraid; and the rest of the time—more than an hour, I think—he was working at the wires of the pantry window, to try to get in."
"Was he all that time at the wires?"
"It was a long time before I remembered the pantry window. He wanted to knock up Hester, but I was afraid to let him. I feared she might tell Patience, and they would have been so angry with me. He got in, at last, at the pantry window, and he opened the kitchen window for me, and I went in by it."
"And you mean to say he was all that time, till one o'clock in the morning, forcing the wires of a pantry window?" cried Sergeant Seeitall.
"It was nearly one. I am telling thee the truth."