She passed him, looking quickly round the room in search of Judith, and then, turning her eyes inquiringly upon the keeper, who drew a chair forward, and then stood back respectfully as Mrs Rolph sat down. "Do you know why I have come here, Hayle?" she said, striving to speak as one who feels herself aggrieved. "Yes, ma'am. 'Bout sending Judith home." "Your child has spoken to you?" "No, ma'am." Mrs Rolph coughed faintly, to gain time. The task did not seem so easy in presence of this sturdy, independent-looking Englishman, and she regretted the tone she had taken, and her next remark as soon as it was spoken. "Well, Hayle," she continued, "what have you to say to this?" "Nay, ma'am," said the keeper coldly; "it's what have you to say?" Mrs Rolph wanted to speak quietly, and make a kind of appeal to the keeper, but the words would not come as she wished, and she turned upon him, in her disappointment and anger, with the first that rose to her lips. "To say? That all this is disgraceful. I am bitterly hurt and grieved to find that you, an old servant of my husband, the man whom he rescued from disgrace, should, in return for the kindness of years and years, give me cause to speak as I am compelled to do now." "Indeed, ma'am!" "Yes. Out of kindness to your poor dead wife, I took Judith, and clothed and educated her, treated her quite as if she had been of my own family, made her the companion of my niece; in short, spared nothing; and my reward is this: that she has set snares for my son, and caused an amount of unhappiness in my house that it may take years to get over, and which may never be forgotten. Now, then, what excuse have you to offer? What has your child to say?" The keeper looked at her and smiled. "Nay, ma'am," he said quietly, "you don't mean all this, and you would not speak so if you were not put out. You know that I've got a case against you. I trusted my poor lass in your hands." "Trusted, man?" "Yes, ma'am, that's the word--trusted her. You promised to be like a mother to her." "And I have been till she proved ungrateful." "Nay, she has not been ungrateful, ma'am, and you know it. It's for me to ask you what you were doing to let your son put such ideas in my poor child's head." "Hayle!" "Yes, ma'am, I must speak my mind." "It is madness. You know it is madness." "Yes, ma'am, if you call it so; but that's how we stand, and my poor girl is not to blame. It is you." "How dare you!" "Because I am her father, ma'am, and my child is as much to me as your son is to you." "This is insolence, sir. Have the goodness to remember who I am." "I never forget it, ma'am. You are my missus, the old master's wife. But this is not a matter of mistress and servant, but of a mother and a father disputing about their children."