ed steadily once more at Marcella. "It be a bad end I'm come
to," he said, after a moment. "But I thank you kindly all the same.
_They'll_ want seein' after." He jerked his head towards the boy, then
towards the outhouse or scullery where his wife was. "She takes it
terr'ble hard. She wanted me to run. But I said, 'No, I'll stan' it
out.' Mr. Brown at the Court'll give you the bit wages he owes me. But
they'll have to go on the Union. Everybody'll turn their backs on them
now."

"I will look after them," said Marcella, "and I will do the best I can
for you. Now I will go to Mrs. Hurd."

Minta Hurd was sitting in a corner of the outhouse on the clay floor,
her head leaning against the wall. The face was turned upward, the eyes
shut, the mouth helplessly open. When Marcella saw her, she knew that
the unhappy woman had already wept so much in the hours since her
husband came back to her that she could weep no more. The two little
girls in the scantiest of clothing, half-fastened, sat on the floor
beside her, shivering and begrimed--watching her. They had been crying
at the tops of their voices, but were now only whimpering miserably, and
trying at intervals to dry their tear-stained cheeks with the skirts of
their frocks. The baby, wrapped in an old shawl, lay on its mother's
knee, asleep and unheeded. The little lean-to place, full of odds and
ends of rubbish, and darkened overhead by a string of damp clothes--was
intolerably cold in the damp February dawn. The children were blue; the
mother felt like ice as Marcella stooped to touch her. Outcast misery
could go no further.

The mother moaned as she felt Marcella's hand, then started wildly
forward, straining her thin neck and swollen eyes that she might see
through the two open doors of the kitchen and the outhouse.

"They're not taking him away?" she said fiercely. "Jenkins swore to me
they'd give me notice."

"No, he's still there," said Marcella, her voice shaking. "The
inspector's come. You shall have notice."

Mrs. Hurd recognised her voice, and looked up at her in amazement.

"You must put this on," said Marcella, taking off the short fur cape she
wore. "You are perished. Give me the baby, and wrap yourself in it."

But Mrs. Hurd put it away from her with a vehement hand.

"I'm not cold, miss--I'm burning hot. He made me come in here. He said
he'd do better if the children and I ud go away a bit. An' I couldn't go
upstairs, because--because--" she hid her