'I know nothing of him,' she sobbed, feeling for her pocket handkerchief.
'He left me when Maryann was a baby, went mining to America, and after
about six months never wrote a line nor sent me a penny bit. I can't say
whether he's alive or dead, the villain. All I've heard of him's to the
bad--and I've heard nothing for years an' all, now.' She sobbed
violently.
The golden-skinned, handsome man near the fire watched her as she wept.
He was frightened, he was troubled, he was bewildered, but none of his
emotions altered him underneath.
There was no sound in the room but the violent sobbing of the landlady.
The men, one and all, were overcome.
'Don't you think as you'd better go, for tonight?' said the sergeant to
the man, with sweet reasonableness. 'You'd better leave it a bit, and
arrange something between you. You can't have much claim on a woman, I
should imagine, if it's how she says. And you've come down on her a bit
too sudden-like.'
The landlady sobbed heart-brokenly. The man watched her large breasts
shaken. They seemed to cast a spell over his mind.
'How I've treated her, that's no matter,' he replied. 'I've come back,
and I'm going to stop in my own home--for a bit, anyhow. There you've got
it.'
'A dirty action,' said the sergeant, his face flushing dark. 'A dirty
action, to come, after deserting a woman for that number of years, and
want to force yourself on her! A dirty action--as isn't allowed by the
law.
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