"Oh, yes," he answered, his eyes twinkling with sudden intelligence, as if at the notion. "I know a chair, and I'd have had one for you by now. But, by gole, I've no one to leave with the child, in case it awakes."
"The child?" Sophia cried, quite startled. The presence of a child in a house is no secret as a rule.
"'Tis here," he said, indicating a door that stood ajar at his elbow. "On the bed in the inner room, ma'am. I'm doing the stairs to be near it."
"Is it a baby?" Sophia cried. "To be sure. What else?"
"I'll stay with it, then," she said. "May I look at it? And will you get the chair for me, while I watch it?"
"To be sure, ma'am! 'Tis here," he continued, as he pushed the door open, and led the way through a tiny room; the outer of two that, looking to the back, corresponded with Tom's apartments at the front. He pushed open the door of the inner room, the floor of which was a step higher. "If you'll see to it while I am away, ma'am, and not be out of hearing?"
"I will," Sophia said softly. "Is it yours?"
"No, my daughter's."
Sophia tip-toed across the floor to the bed side. The room was poorly lighted by a window, which was partially blocked by a water-cistern; the bed stood in the dark corner beside the window; Sophia, turning up her nose at the close air of the room, hesitated for an instant to touch the dirty, tumbled bed-clothes. She could not see the child. "Where is it?" she asked, stooping to look more closely.
The answer was the dull jar of the door as it closed behind her; a sound that was followed by the click of a bolt driven home in the socket. She turned swiftly, her heart standing still, her brain already apprised of treachery. The man was gone.