with round "O's" of different sizes for heads and bodies, and
pitchforks for legs and arms....

Sister Tobias went on: "The _Siege Gazette_ had come out that day, with
the news of"--she dropped her voice to a whisper--"of her being likely to
be married before long to him that's gone. May Our Lord give him rest!"
Sister Tobias's well-accustomed fingers pattered over the bib of her
blue-checked apron, making the Sign. "And Sister Hilda-Antony and me had
the world's work with all the people who stopped us in the street and came
round us at the Institute to say how glad they were. Talk of a stone
plopped in a duckpond! You'd have thought by the crazy way folks carried
on that two pretty young people had never went and got engaged before."
Sister Tobias was never coldly grammatical in speech. "But the child was
happy, poor dear, in hearing even strangers praise him; and when the
firing stopped and we were on our way home, she begged us to turn out of
it and call in at the Convent, where he'd begged her to meet him, if only
for a minute, not having seen her since the Sunday when----"

"Yes--yes!"

Saxham, who writhed inwardly, remembering that Sunday, nodded, bending his
heavy brows. His ears were given to Sister Tobias, his eyes to the slight
figure that somehow, in the skirt some impatient movement had wrenched
from the gathers and the shirt-bodice that was buttoned awry, had the air
of a ragged, neglected child. And she held up her scrawled slate to ward
off his look, and peeped at him round the side of it.

Big strong men like that could be cruel when they were angry. The Kid knew
that so well.

"We went to the Convent with the child," Sister Tobias continued: "We
hadn't the heart to deny her, though we thought the Mother might be vexed
that we hadn't come straight home. A queer thing happened as we crossed
the road and went up along the fence towards the gates with the child
between us.... A big, heavy man, dressed as the miners dress, with a great
black beard and his hat pulled down over his eyes, came along in such a
hurry that he knocked Sister Hilda-Antony off the kerb into the road, and
brushed close up against _her_----"

"Against Miss Mildare? Did it occur to you that the man had come out of
the Convent enclosure?" Saxham asked quickly.

Sister Tobias shook her head.

"No; but I did think he meant stopping and speaking to the child, and then
changed his mind and hurried on. 'Did he hurt you, dearie?'