‘Ye’re a good girl, Alice,’ Jenny thanked her quietly, as, having risen, she began to move about the room--‘I’m glad to think ye’ll be in the house with Annie to take care on her whilst I am away. My bonnet an’ shawl are on a chair there, will ye give ’em to me? My head’s a bit tired still, but I’ve a deal to do. No, don’t stop me, I must go out of t’ house. I’m goin’ to them as has robbed me of my children, they shall give me to-night an account of all they’ve done.’ No words would restrain her, her pale face was resolute; with trembling fingers she fastened her bonnet and shawl, allowed Alice an instant in which to cling to her, and then turned to the door, and went out into the darkness. Some mechanical impulse appeared to be her guide--or perhaps some sense of an effort that should be final and supreme--if there were those who had done harm to her children they should give account to the mother of the things that they had done. With steady fingers she closed the door behind her; and, weak yet resolute, went out into the night. CHAPTER XXIX THE SQUIRE SENDS FOR NAT WHILST Jenny was making her solitary way through the darkness, the library at the Hall had been lighted with wax candles, and Nat was standing there before Mr Mallory. It was a more quiet scene than that of the tumult at the cottage, but to an observer it must have appeared to be still more fraught with doom. For let us try to imagine it for a moment--the dark room, the wax candles, the pale face of the Squire in his usual seat by the table, the ill-concealed delight of the butler who stood behind him, the interest of the two footmen who guarded the criminal. And that criminal! a boy from whose face, hard, reckless, sullen, all beauty and even all that might interest had fled, whose whole nature appeared to be absorbed in the silent resistance which opposes itself to inevitable doom. A self-evident wrong-doer, a convicted criminal, this son of a respectable mother, who had been himself respectable. And this was the lad who had been the Squire’s favourite, the boy whom the Squire’s little son had played with, and had loved! ‘If I had not known you for so many years,’ said Mr Mallory, in the relentless tone Nat had never heard from his lips before, ‘I would not have treated you so mercifully, but I would have sent for the police, and let them deal with you. This matter would have been investigated earlier, but Mr Lee has been absent from the town; and, although he made some allusions to an enclosure he had sent, I never supposed it was of money that he spoke. I was writing about you at that time to Mr Lee. I have not the least doubt that you were aware of it. It is possible that you opened his letter from idle curiosity without any suspicion that money was within it. Confess everything to me. It is your only chance. It will be of some advantage to you to be kicked from the premises instead of being sent to gaol.’