'Mrs. Jose is away at Honiton with her sister nursing her. She is sick.'
'Whither do you propose to go to-morrow?'
'I have nowhere before me.'
'You do not belong to this parish?'
'No, I was not born here. I have not lived here long enough. But, captain, do not misunderstand me. I ask alms of none; all I require is work to be given me so that I may earn my livelihood, and I will not be separated from my child. See you,' her voice softened, and the lines in her face relaxed, as her eyes melted and her lips quivered, 'I am a lonely woman. I have neither father nor mother nor sister nor kin. No, nor husband neither. He whom I had has abandoned me; maybe, by this time, has taken up with another woman, and dresses and feeds and comforts her.' Again her voice and features became hard. She looked before her into the fire. But then again a wave of softer feeling swept over her.
'For eighteen years,' she said, with her eyes on the fire, and speaking rather to herself than to the man, 'for eighteen years Winefred has lain at my heart. I fed her from my bosom. When she cried, all the fibres of my being trembled. From me she has the very blood that flows in her veins, and her soul is a part of mine, and her first breath she drew out of my lungs. I have done everything for her. I love nothing, care for nothing, hope for nothing apart from her. I have nothing but my child—no, not a clot of earth, not a brick out of a wall, not a guinea of gold; I have nothing my own but her.'
She began to cry, not noisily, but with great tears stealing down her cheeks. Then she was silent.
All at once she burst forth, 'O God in heaven, Who has put such love into a mother's heart, Thou alone canst understand me. What if aught should befall me, and she were left alone? She is a handsome girl. I was handsome once, and having no father, no mother to care for me, I came into such sorrow as never was. I cannot endure to think that she—my Winefred, my all—should be kicked about from place to place, friendless, or taken up by such as would only blight her whole life. I had rather that she died.' She sprang up and her eye flashed. 'Rather than this I would do it again. I will do it again, and not let the evil soil and rot my pretty flower.'
'Be still, good woman,' said Job, and he spoke with a gulp in his throat. He took up his violin, and played the same air as before.
Presently he laid the instrument on his knees.