re amused by the
professional manner than suspicious of Mr Julius Handford, inquired
before taking their departure too whether he believed there was anything
that really looked bad here?

The Abbot replied with reticence, couldn't say. If a murder, anybody
might have done it. Burglary or pocket-picking wanted 'prenticeship. Not
so, murder. We were all of us up to that. Had seen scores of people come
to identify, and never saw one person struck in that particular way.
Might, however, have been Stomach and not Mind. If so, rum stomach.
But to be sure there were rum everythings. Pity there was not a word
of truth in that superstition about bodies bleeding when touched by the
hand of the right person; you never got a sign out of bodies. You got
row enough out of such as her--she was good for all night now (referring
here to the banging demands for the liver), 'but you got nothing out of
bodies if it was ever so.'

There being nothing more to be done until the Inquest was held next day,
the friends went away together, and Gaffer Hexam and his son went their
separate way. But, arriving at the last corner, Gaffer bade his boy go
home while he turned into a red-curtained tavern, that stood dropsically
bulging over the causeway, 'for a half-a-pint.'

The boy lifted the latch he had lifted before, and found his sister
again seated before the fire at her work. Who raised her head upon his
coming in and asking:

'Where did you go, Liz?'

'I went out in the dark.'

'There was no necessity for that. It was all right enough.'

'One of the gentlemen, the one who didn't speak while I was there,
looked hard at me. And I was afraid he might know what my face meant.
But there! Don't mind me, Charley! I was all in a tremble of another
sort when you owned to father you could write a little.'

'Ah! But I made believe I wrote so badly, as that it was odds if any one
could read it. And when I wrote slowest and smeared but with my finger
most, father was best pleased, as he stood looking over me.'

The girl put aside her work, and drawing her seat close to his seat by
the fire, laid her arm gently on his shoulder.

'You'll make the most of your time, Charley; won't you?'

'Won't I? Come! I like that. Don't I?'

'Yes, Charley, yes. You work hard at your learning, I know. And I work
a little, Charley, and plan and contrive a little (wake out of my
sleep contriving sometimes), how to get together a shilling now, and a
shilling then,