He considered. "I should ’old me tongue and say nothing about it, if I was you. ’Cos if’t got to policeman’s ears you’d be ’ad up for your words." His caution, that of a law-ignoring folk who manage their own affairs and keep silence concerning them, did not satisfy her. "But if he did do’t," she persisted, "’e ought to be punished." "You knaw, mother, there’s no proof so ’tedn’t no good to say anything about it." "Well," she said sharply, "there’s this—bottle’s gone out of cupboard! What’s become of it? I s’pose that won’t be any proof? And Leadville seem to be very uneasy, but that won’t be any proof uther? And I feel sure in me bones and veins ’e wanted for ’er to die, but that’s no proof?" Tom was not to be moved. "A still tongue," said he, "make a wise ’ead and anyway a craikin’ tongue do often mean a sore one." She gave up the attempt to influence him. "I s’pose then, I shall ’av to rest me ’eart content, but you’ve no idea ’ow desperate towards ’im I feel. Knowin’, too, that ’e owes ’er everything, for what was ’e, nothing but a come-by-chance? And for ’im to serve ’er like ’e ’av!" "I reckon ’e’s like one of they cuckoos. They do say cuckoo hi-ists the other li’l birds out o’ the nest." She was paying but scant attention. "I don’t feel I can bear to speak ’im civil. Tidn’t," she added mysteriously, "for what ’e’ve done but for what ’e’ve tried to do. Doctor, ’e said she died of ’eart failure and I s’pose doctor ought to know." Tom could not follow his wife’s flying thought. "Well," he said in those rough full tones which contained the very body of sound, "I don’t believe doctors knaw everything. If they did ’twould make a fine newspaper. Nobody told Dr. Derek about the cocoa. He thought she ’ad ’er supper as usual and then died off suddint in ’er sleep." "Iss," said Mrs. Tom thoughtfully and passed a hand over Smut who, accepting the fact that her mistress was too much engrossed in making mouth-noises—the main occupation of human beings—to pet her, had climbed quietly back into her lap and gone to sleep. "Iss—doctor didn’t know anything about the cocoa." She, herself, knew more than any one but was disinclined to impart the knowledge. After all it was not the act that damned a man but the intention; and she did not want Tom to think Leadville less guilty than he seemed to her. She remained silent going back over their talk and, on the whole, she found it comforting. Tom, deprecating the idea of human interference, had given utterance to one pregnant sentence: "’E knaw ’e’ve done it and the Lorrd knaw and ’e’ll be brought to judgment." "Iss, the Lorrd knaw," she told herself, "and I can see as old chap won’t ’av everything ’is own way; but I wanted more’n that, I—I wanted S’bina to git ’er own back." She hushed her vindictive longings with a common-sense reflection. "Well, don’t s’pose she’d be any ’appier if she did." *CHAPTER XXII*