and thus he lost the child and the child's mother."
"I want to ask———"
"A moment, my dear boy," said Herbert, "and I have done. That evil genius, Compeyson, the worst of scoundrels among many scoundrels, knowing of his keeping out of the way at that time, and of his reasons for doing so, of course afterwards held the knowledge over his head as a means of keeping him poorer, and working him harder. It was clear last night that this barbed the point of Provis's animosity."
"I want to know," said I, "and particularly, Herbert, whether he told you when this happened?"
"Particularly? Let me remember, then, what he said as to that. His expression was, 'a round score o' year ago, and a'most directly after I took up wi' Compeyson.' How old were you when you came upon him in the little churchyard?"
"I think in my seventh year."
"Ay. It had happened some three or four years then, he said, and you brought
