That was a question apparently hard to answer. Yet I think the real cause was standing there, with a look of unbounded astonishment upon her pretty face.
"Going to leave us, James!" she cried. "Why, whatever shall I do without you?"
"Yes, Miss Mary," said James huskily. "I think I may say we've settled to go. Hamlyn has got a letter from a cousin of his, who is making a fortune; and besides, I've got tired of the old place somehow lately."
Time went on, and May was well advanced. That had at last reached the vicar's ears which had driven him to risk a quarrel with his daughter and forbid George Hawker the house.
George went home one evening and found Madge, the gipsy woman who had brought him up, sitting before the kitchen fire.
"Well, old woman, where's the old man?"
"Away at Colyton fair," she answered.
"I hope he'll have the sense to stay there to-night He'll fall off his horse, coming home drunk one night, and be found dead in a ditch."
"Good thing for you if he was."
"Maybe," said George; "but I'd be sorry for him, too."