“I shall wait till you are gone; one day more can’t make any difference, and it is best to be on the safe side, then if they want to know where you are, I can say on your way to Australia, so there’ll be no fear of their catching you, though it is so long ago there isn’t much danger of that now.” “Please yourself, and now I must be off. Here are five sovereigns for you, mother; they are honestly earned, so you need not be afraid to take them, and now I must say good-bye. How thick the fog is; there is no danger of anyone seeing me this evening; it is as much as I shall do to find my way down to the Brighton Road without breaking my neck in a chalk pie. Take care of yourself, mother; but you know these downs better than I do,” said George Hursey, kissing his mother. “Ay, ay, lad, never fear for me; I have been out in worse fogs than this. Good-bye, God bless you,” and the old wool-gatherer strained her eyes till her son’s figure disappeared, as it very quickly did, in the fog. She stood still for a minute or two after he had gone, gloating over the secret she had at last discovered, and muttering to herself again and again, “Baron de Thorens, Carolles, Normandy,” and then she too turned and walked slowly off through the fog in a different direction. It was quite true she had been out in worse fogs than this, but whether it was that she was too much occupied with her own thoughts to think of where she was going, or whether the fog, which gradually increased, was worse than she fancied, she suddenly, after wandering about for half-an-hour, awoke to the conclusion that she did not know where she was. If she had come right she ought to have been at the bottom of the hill by now, whereas she was still on flat ground, and had not begun the descent. She had been so absorbed in wondering what the Shelleys, particularly “gentleman Jack,” as she always called Jack, would say to her news, and in picturing to herself the amazement on learning that Fairy was the daughter of a French nobleman, perhaps a baroness herself or a countess, for Dame Hursey had very vague ideas on the subject of French titles; and in thinking how pleased Fairy would be to hear she was a rich lady, that she forgot all about the fog and where she was going. Loving gossip as she did, the secret George had put in her power was dearer to her than the five sovereigns tied up in the corner of her pocket-handkerchief; it would add to her importance in the neighbourhood more than the gold. Moreover, it might lead to a reward for her, since she had had no part in leaving the child to the care of the shepherd, and Fairy she was sure would not suffer her to be forgotten when the Shelleys came to be rewarded.