The rower looked from one to the other with a sinister expression.
After the boat had grounded, when Mrs. Marley left it, he said, 'You'll not go away—right away, I mean—without letting me know where you may be; because it might chance—there's no telling—there is hope yet.'
He did not complete his sentence.
'There is no hope,' said the woman coldly, 'no more than there is sun above these clouds and this dribbling rain. The sun has gone down. After nineteen years hope dies.'
Then she left him, and extending her arm, again grasped the wrist of her daughter.
'Mother,' said Winefred, 'Mr. Dench hates us.'
'It matters nothing to us whether he hate or love. Why should he hate us?'
'That I cannot say, but hate us he does.'
'All the world hates us, for all the world has money, comforts, shelter, and,' she muttered in her bosom, 'there are some who have a husband to care for them, and a father to watch over them. We have neither, and the sight of us, as we are, in our need, our nakedness, our desolation, is an offence, like garbage, to be swept aside and cast on the dunghill. Seaton says, Away, across the water! you do not belong to us. And Axmouth says, Away! you were not born here, and we are not responsible for you. Let us warm our feet at a sea-coal fire, and drink mulled ale, and turn into our downy beds—go you wanderers in night and cold and wet—die, but do not trouble us.'