began the
conversation.

"Are you married?" she asked.

"Ay; a month since."

"And you've got her money?"

"Yes," he said; "but I've been walking into it."

"Make the most of it," said Madge. "Your father's dead."

"Dead!"

"Ay, dead. And, what's worse, lad, he lived long enough to alter his
will."

"Oh, Lord! What do you mean?"

"I mean," she said, "that he has left all his money to your cousin. He
found out everything, all in a minute, as it were; and he brought a new
will home from Exeter, and I witnessed it. And he turned me out of
doors, and, next morning, after I was gone, he was found dead in his
bed. I got to London, and found no trace of you there, till, by an
accident, I heard that you had been seen down here, so I came on. I've
got my living by casting fortins, and begging, and cadging, and such
like. Sometime I've slept in a barn, and sometime in a hedge, but I've
fought my way to you, true and faithful, through it all, you see."

"So he's gone," said George, between his teeth, "and his money with
him. That's awful. What an unnatural old villain!"

"He got it into his head at last, George, that you weren't his son at
all."

"The lunatic!--and what put that into his head?"

"He knew you weren't his wife's son, you see, and he had heard some
stories about me before I came to live with him, and so, at the last,
he took to saying he'd nought to do with you."

"Then you mean to say----"

"That you are my boy," she said, "my own boy. Why, lad, who but thy own
mother would a' done for thee what I have? And thou never thinking of
it all these years! Blind lad!"

"Good God!" said George. "And if I had only known that before, how
differently I'd have gone on. How I'd have sneaked and truckled, and
fetched and carried for him! Bah, it's enough to drive one mad. All
this hide-and-seek work don't pay, old woman. You and I are bowled out
with it. How easy for you to have given me a hint of this years ago, to
make me careful! But you delight in mystery and conglomeration, and you
always will. There--I ain't ungrateful, but when I think of what we've
lost, no wonder I get wild. And what the devil am I to do now?"

"You've got the girl's money to go on with," she said.

"Not so very much of it," he replied. "I tell you I've been playing
like--never mind what, this last month, and I've lost every night. Then
I've got another woman in tow, that costs--oh curse her, what don't she
cost, what with money