; 'suverins? Bessie ain't got no
suverins. Isaac arns sixteen shillin a week.'

The colour was ebbing fast from his cheek and lips. Watson threw him a
quick professional glance, then rapidly consulted with himself. No; he
decided to hold his tongue.

'Yo _are_ reg'lar used up,' he said, taking hold of the old fellow
kindly by the arm. 'Shall I walk yer up the hill?'

John withdrew himself.

'_Suverins!_' he repeated, in a low hoarse voice. 'She ain't got 'em, I
tell yer--she ain't got 'em!'

The last words rose to a sort of cry, and without another word to Watson
the old man started at a feeble run, his head hanging.

Watson followed him, afraid lest he should drop in the road. Instead,
John seemed to gather strength. He made straight for the hill, taking no
heed whatever of two or three startled acquaintances who stopped and
shouted to him. When the ground began to rise, he stumbled again and
again, but by a marvel did not fall, and his pace hardly slackened.
Watson had difficulty in keeping up with him.

But when the policeman reached his own cottage on the side of the road,
he stopped, panting, and contented himself with looking after the
mounting figure. As soon as it turned the corner of the Costrells' lane,
he went into his own house, said a word to his wife, and sat himself
down at his own back door to await events--to ponder, also, a few
conversations he had held that morning, with Mrs. Moulsey at 'the shop,'
with Dawson, with Hall the butcher. Poor old John--poor old fellow!

When Bolderfield reached the paling in front of the Costrells' cottage,
he paused a moment, holding for support to the half-open gate and
struggling for breath. 'I must keep my 'edd, I must,' he was saying to
himself piteously;' don yer be a fool, John Borroful, don yer be a
fool!'

As he stood there, a child's face pushed the window-blind of the cottage
aside, and the lame boy's large eyes looked Bolderfield up and down.
Immediately after, the door opened, and all four children stood huddling
behind each other on the threshold. They all looked shyly at the
newcomer. They knew him, but in six months they had grown strange to
him.

'Arthur, where's your mother?' said John, at last able to walk firmly up
to the door.

'Don know.'

'When did yer see her lasst?'

'She wor 'ere gettin us our tea,' said another child; 'but she didn't
eat nothin.'

John impatiently pushed the children before him back into the kitchen.

'You '