"Of course not! Mrs. Tams is sitting up with her." Rachel meant her tone to be a dignified reproof to Thomas Batchgrew for daring to assume even the possibility of her having left Mrs. Maldon to solitude. But she did not succeed, because she could not manage her tone. She desired intensely to be the self-possessed, mature woman, sure of her position and of her sagacity; but she could be nothing save the absurd, guilty, stammering, blushing little girl, shifting her feet and looking everywhere except boldly into Thomas Batchgrew's horrid eyes. "So it's Mrs. Tams as is sitting with her!" Rachel could not help explaining-- "I had to come down town to do some shopping for Sunday. Somebody had to come. Mr. Fores had called in to ask after Mrs. Maldon, and so he walked down with me." Every word she said appeared intolerably foolish to her as she uttered it. "And then he brought ye in here!" Batchgrew grimly completed the tale. "We came in here for ten minutes or so, as I'd finished my shopping so quickly. Mr. Fores has just run across to the butcher's to get something that was forgotten." Mr. Batchgrew coughed loosely and loudly. And beyond the cough, beyond the confines of the ugly little room which imprisoned her so close to old Batchgrew and his grotesque whiskers, Rachel could hear the harsh, quick laughter of the audience, and then faint music--far off. "If young Fores was here," said Mr. Batchgrew brutally, "I should tell him straight as he might do better than to go gallivanting about the town until that there money's found." He turned towards his boxes. "I don't know what you mean, Mr. Batchgrew," said Rachel, tapping her foot and trying to be very dignified. "And I'll tell ye another thing, young miss," Batchgrew went on. "Every minute as ye spend with young Fores ye'll regret. He's a bad lot, and ye may as well know it first as last. Ye ought to thank me for telling of ye, but ye won't." "I really don't know what you mean, Mr. Batchgrew!" She could not invent another phrase. "Ye know what I mean right enough, young miss!... If ye only came in for ten minutes yer time's up." Rachel moved to leave. "Hold on!" Batchgrew stopped her. There was a change in his voice. "Look at me!" he commanded, but with the definite order was mingled some trace of cajolery. She obeyed, quivering, her cheeks the colour of a tomato. In spite of all preoccupations, she distinctly noticed--and not without a curious tremor--that his features had taken on a boyish look. In the almost senile face she could see ambushed the face of the youth that Thomas Batchgrew had been perhaps half a century before. "Ye're a fine wench," said he, with a note of careless but genuine admiration. "I'll not deny it. Don't ye go and throw yerself away. Keep out o' mischief."