‘Last Christmas,’ she said musingly, ‘we all went down to the Buffalo in the evening—George and me and the children.’ Abner also remembered. He told her of his own Christmas at Hackett’s Cottages, how John Fellows had been in hospital with his broken thigh and he had been left alone with Alice and little John. Mary leaned forward and listened to him in the firelight with her soft eyes fixed upon his face. ‘Was it her you wrote that letter to?’ she asked. ‘The one you wanted to post?’ ‘I thought I could save you the trouble.’ He laughed. ‘Yes . . . that was her.’ ‘How old was she?’ ‘Somewhere about the same as you, I reckon.’ ‘And two children?’ ‘No, only one kid.’ ‘How long was he . . . I mean your father . . . in hospital?’ ‘Pretty nigh six month.’ ‘And you had to keep the house going?’ ‘Of course I had. There wasn’t nought coming in except his club, and that bain’t nothing to speak on.’ ‘Six months . . .’ She stared into the fire, and there was a long silence. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’ she said at last, without raising her eyes. ‘Funny how things turn out?’ ‘Yes, it’s a rum go.’ Then she began slowly to question him about Alice: what was she like, fair or dark, how tall, the kind of dress she wore—curious details that he had to search his memory to answer. She seemed to be working out for herself the obvious parallel, but never looked at him. ‘Why did you leave them?’ she said at last. By this time is was no longer difficult to talk to her. He told her continuously the story of his last days at Halesby. She listened eagerly, putting in from time to time a short question for which he could see no reason. He told her of John Fellows’s bouts of drink, of the way in which he had set himself to work through his compensation money, of the day of Dulston Wakes, the boxing booth, the brooch, the moment when he had come blundering down into the kitchen at Alice’s cry for help, the struggle—and the blow with which he had knocked his father out. He even told her of the sovereigns that Alice had slipped into his pocket when he left her. ‘That’s what I sent back to her in that letter,’ he said. ‘Was that all? It was good of you.’ He was silent, and she pressed him again. ‘Why didn’t you go before?’ she said. ‘Why did you stay on there till that happened?’ ‘I dunno’,’ he said. ‘I reckon I’d got to see it through. That football business turned me up.’ ‘You wanted to go before?’ ‘Yes, I was pretty well sick of it. Any one would have been.’ She looked at him, and her eyes were now humble. She spoke almost with diffidence.