"And you will repay favour for favour?"
"If I can."
"Well, my brother is a very lonely, home-keeping man, who hardly ever has any one to see him, and he told me to ask you if you would do him the kindness of coming in this evening for a little while, as he would like to meet you, now that our young people are such friends. That is the favour I ask. I ask it for my brother's sake. Will you come, please?"
The man started, drew back, and looked around him half-scared. The notion of going into the house of another man had not crossed his mind for two years. The invitation sounded on his ears as though it were spoken in a language familiar to him in childhood, but which he had almost wholly forgotten. He had come across the water in order to secure a companion for his little son: but that any one should think he would come across that water and speak to people for an object of his own was startling, disconcerting, subversive of all he had held for a long time: since his arrival at the Ait.
Hetty saw that he hesitated, and, having no clue to his thoughts, fancied her invitation had not been pressing enough.
"You will promise?" she said, holding Freddie out to him. "You said you would do me a favour in return for the loan of the boy. You will not withdraw. It would really be a great kindness, for my brother is alone in the evenings except for me, and he seldom goes out."
"But Mrs. Layard----" said the man, in discomposure and perplexity, as he took Freddie in his arms, and hardly knowing what he said.
"Ah," said the girl, shaking her head, and pointing up to the unclouded sky, "she went when Freddie was a tiny little baby."
"Dead?" whispered the man, as a spasm passed over his face.
"Yes, more than three years."