"There's naught the matter with me," said he, as if annoyed at her remark.
"Nay, lad, but there is." He did not speak again to contradict her; indeed she did not know if he had heard her, so unmoved did he look.
"Would'st like to go back to Upclose Farm?" asked she, sorrowfully.
"It's just blackberrying time," said Tom.
Will shook his head. She looked at him a while, as if trying to read that expression of despondency and trace it back to its source.
"Will and Tom could go," said she; "I must stay here till I've found her, thou know'st," continued she, dropping her voice.
He turned quickly round, and with the authority he at all times exercised over Tom, bade him begone to bed.
When Tom had left the room he prepared to speak.
CHAPTER II.
"Mother," then said Will, "why will you keep on thinking she's alive? If she were but dead, we need never name her name again. We've never heard naught on her since father wrote her that letter; we never knew whether she got it or not. She'd left her place before then. Many a one dies is—"