"I thought I'd best come, you know," said the man, "just to tell you that I'm sorry, but I can't receive you here for the night. I'm a widower, and folk might talk. Why are you from home?"
"I ran away. I cannot return to the Punch-Bowl."
"Well, now. That's curious!" said the gardener. "Time out of mind I've had it in my head to run away when my old woman was rampageous. I've knowed a man who actually did run to Americay becos his wife laid on him so. But I never, in my experience, heard of a woman runnin' away from her husband, that is to say—alone. You ain't got no one with you, now?"
"Yes, my baby."
"I don't mean that. Well, it is coorious, a woman runnin' away with her baby. I'm terrible sorry, but I can't take you in above another half-hour. Where are you thinking of goyne to?"
"I know of no where and no one."
"Why not try Missus Chivers at Thursley. You was at her school, I suppose?"
"Yes, I was there."
"Try her, and all will come right in the end."
Mehetabel rose; her child was now asleep.