“Nothing,” Jervy answered; “I don’t look to you to pay my commission.”
Mrs. Sowler reflected a little—and understood him. “Say that again,” she insisted, “in the presence of your young woman as witness.”
Jervy touched his young woman’s hand under the table, warning her to make no objection, and to leave it to him. Having declared for the second time that he would not take a farthing from Mrs. Sowler, he went on with his inquiries.
“I’m acting in your interests, Mother Sowler,” he said; “and you’ll be the loser, if you don’t answer my questions patiently, and tell me the truth. I want to go back to the debt. What is it for?”
“For six weeks’ keep of a child, at ten shillings a week.”
Phoebe looked up from her plate.
“Whose child?” Jervy asked, noticing the sudden movement.
“Morgan’s child—the same man you said was Farnaby.”
“Do you know who the mother was?”
“I wish I did! I should have got the money out of her long ago.”