'Sell the house!'
Mrs. Marley considered. She put her knuckles to her lips.
'What will you do? Where will you go? I reckon you will have to make up your mind as to that.'
'Where I go, and what my plans are—these are no concerns of yours,' she answered. 'I shall find a home somewhere.'
'May not an old acquaintance—a friend you will not allow me to call myself—ask a civil question without meeting with a rude answer! Why, Jane, I have known you since you were a little girl. I knew you when you met with him. I know all about that bad business, and I have known you ever since, and have admired how you have kept yourself respectable. I should be a bad sort of a chap, and altogether without heart, were I to let you go and not ask about you.'
Jane answered, somewhat mollified, 'I shall take a house suitable for Winefred and me in our altered condition.'
'Well now,' said Dench, 'I don't understand that. Altered is for the worse, I suppose.'
'I should have said in our bettered condition. Winefred's father has acknowledged her, and will provide that she be brought up as a lady.'
The colour faded instantly from Dench's face, and his jaw fell. He looked at her with blank, fishy eyes.