hers, religiously. That is to say, she kept her tongue
silent on every point that she could reasonably suppose to call for
secrecy, whether from his point of view or this old Mrs. Prichard's.

She felt at liberty to repeat what she remembered of his shocking
ravings about his prison life, and to dwell on the fact that he appeared
to have mistaken her for his mother. But this could be told without
connecting him with any person in or near the village. He was a returned
convict who had not seen his mother for twenty years, and meeting an old
woman who closely resembled her, or his idea of what she must have
become, had made a decisive mistake in identity.

As to the name he had written down for her, she simply shrank from it;
and destroyed it promptly, as soon as she collected her faculties after
the shock it gave her. She framed a satisfactory theory to account for
it, out of materials collected by foraging among her memories of fifty
years ago. It turned on these facts:--That the name Ralph Thornton
Daverill was the baptismal name of her sister's little boy that died in
England, and that Maisie had repeated to her what her husband had said
after the child's death, that the name would do over again if ever she
had another son; but had added that she herself would never consent to
its adoption. Granny Marrable was sure on both these points, but so
uncertain about what she had heard of the christenings of her nephews
born in Van Diemen's Land, that she had no scruple in deciding that her
sister had dissuaded her brother-in-law from his intention. For this
madman was clearly not Maisie's son, if Mrs. Prichard was his mother.
But what would be more natural and probable than that if Daverill
married again, he should make use of the name a second time? He might
have married again more than once, for anything Granny Marrable knew. So
might his widow--might have married a man named Prichard. Why not? Those
were considerations she need not weigh or speculate about.

Nevertheless, though she had destroyed the signed name, it was a cobweb
in her memory she would have gladly brushed away altogether. How she
would have liked to tell the whole to Ruth, when--as once or twice
happened--she walked over from Chorlton to get a report of progress,
leaving old Mrs. Prichard in charge of that loyal dog, supported by
Elizabeth-next-door, if need were. But she was sworn to silence on
matters she dared not provoke inquiry about. So her tale o