"I can’t stay ’ere alone," he said. "I can’t. No, I can’t." "Well, my dear, there’s the children to see to, and the ’ouse and everything. Besides there’s no bed for me to sleep in if I do stay ’ere and I’m tired as a dog." He was unable to offer a suggestion but his anxiety was written so plainly on his face that Mrs. Tom would not deny him. If he were afraid to be left, she must stay. "I’ll see what Tom got to say," she began uncertainly, and the trouble died off Leadville’s face. He looked about him and said in an excusing tone: "’Tis a whisht old house, so it is." "Well now," said Mrs. Tom who, after a little thought, had seen how she would manage, "I’ll be off ’ome and whiles I’m gone you bring the li’l bed from the top room and I’ll make it up when I come down." "I want for ’ee to ’av a decent bed." He was for once considerate. "Search out a blanket or two for me and I shall be all right." Her manner was matter of fact, but more than once that evening Leadville had given her food for thought. Why should he be so uneasy, so irritable and why, oh why, should he be frightened of the one creature on earth who had held him dear? "When I’ve time," said Mrs. Tom to herself as she went up the road, "I’ll ponder it in my mind." *CHAPTER XX* A death in the family brings to some members of it unwelcome holiday. Tom Rosevear, though not particularly fond of his cousin, would not have thought it ’decent’ to do more work than was necessary on the day ’poor S’bina ’ad gone ’ome’; and when he had shot ’a wild duck or two,’ counted the seventy-three red-brown bullocks of his herd and arranged for the death of a nineteen-score pig, he found time hang heavy on his hands. Without his wife, Tom was like a whip-handle without a lash. Once or twice during the afternoon he put his head in at the door, but finding only Gray, went off again. He was as dissatisfied as a dog with a sore toe and, though when evening darkened he sat down with the children and took his tea, he ate without relish. The room which Gray, ashamed of previous slackness, had set in order, was homelike and snug; but in his thoughts Tom found vague fault with it. The old sofa was shabby and the oilcloth worn, the place too was small, too small for so large a family. When the meal was over he fetched the last number of the _Cornishman_ from the parlour table and set himself, unhappily, to read the paragraphs that bore on matters agricultural: and it seemed to him—the lack of one being the lack of all—that even the _Cornishman_ was dull.