"The next morning, between nine and ten, I was in the shop, putting a
pint of cream which had been ordered into a can, when to my surprise
Matilda walked in, cool and calm. She said she had come to tell me that
the man I had seen leave the house was her brother. He had fallen into
trouble through having become security for a fellow workman, had had all
his things sold up, including his tools, and had walked every step of
the way--thirty miles--to ask her if she could help him. She did help
him as far as she could, giving him what little money she had by her,
and Jane Cross had added ten shillings to it. He had got in only
at dusk, she said, had taken some supper with them, and left again
afterwards, and that she was letting him out at the gate when I must
have been passing it. She did not see me, for her eyes were dim with
crying: her heart felt fit to break in saying farewell. That was the
truth, she declared, and that her brother had had no more to do with
Jane's death than she or I had; he was away again out of Saltwater the
same night he came into it."
"Well? Did you not believe her?"
"No, sir," answered Owen, boldly. "I did not. If this was true, why
should she have gone off into that smothered shriek in the churchyard
when I mentioned him, and rush away in a fright?"