"I haven't made nobbut a poor return to you, miss," he said in a shambling way, as though the words were dragged out of him. Then he threw up his head again. "But I didn't mean nothink o' what happened," he repeated, doggedly going off again into a rapid yet, on the whole, vivid and consecutive account of Westall's attack, to which Marcella listened, trying to remember every word.
"Keep that for your solicitor," the inspector said at last, interrupting him; "you are only giving pain to Miss Boyce. You had better let her go to your wife."
Hurd looked steadily once more at Marcella. "It be a bad end I'm come to," he said, after a moment. "But I thank you kindly all the same. They'll want seein' after." He jerked his head towards the boy, then towards the outhouse or scullery where his wife was. "She takes it terr'ble hard. She wanted me to run. But I said, 'No, I'll stan' it out.' Mr. Brown at the Court'll give you the bit wages he owes me. But they'll have to go on the Union. Everybody'll turn their backs on them now."
"I will look after them," said Marcella, "and I will do the best I can for you. Now I will go to Mrs. Hurd."
Minta Hurd was sitting in a corner of the outhouse on the clay floor, her head leaning against the wall. The face was turned upward, the eyes shut, the mouth helplessly open. When Marcella saw her, she knew that the unhappy woman had already wept so much in the hours since her husband came back to her that she could weep no more. The two little girls in the scantiest of clothing, half-fastened, sat on the floor beside her, shivering and begrimed—watching her. They had been crying at the tops of their voices, but were now only whimpering miserably, and trying at intervals to dry their tear-stained cheeks with the skirts of their frocks. The baby, wrapped in an old shawl, lay on its mother's knee, asleep and unheeded. The little lean-to place, full of odds and ends of rubbish, and darkened overhead by a string of damp clothes—was intolerably cold in the damp February dawn. The children were blue; the mother felt like ice as Marcella stooped to touch her. Outcast misery could go no further.
The mother moaned as she felt Marcella's hand, then started wildly forward, straining her thin neck and swollen eyes that she might see through the two open doors of the kitchen and the outhouse.
"They're not taking him away?" she said fiercely. "Jenkins swore to me they'd give me notice."
"No, he's still there," said Marcella, her voice shaking. "The inspector's come. You shall have notice."
Mrs. Hurd recognised her voice, and looked up at her in amazement.
"You must put this on," said Marcella, taking off the short fur cape she wore. "You are perished. Give me the baby, and wrap yourself in it."