“Your wife’s father was there, Sir,” was what he heard now, with at least a quarter of his mind. “But he had been drinking and was all so mazed-like that he couldn’t hear what uncle and Monk were saying. But I heard them, though they didn’t know I heard them. And oh, Mr. Solent, they’re all after you; they’re all watching you like dogs at a rabbit-hole! They’re just pushing you on to it⁠ ⁠… and that’s God’s truth!”

She had been whispering all this with flushed cheeks and an intense gaze fixed upon him.

Wolf’s attention began to return.

“Pushing me on to what?” he replied, in equally low tones.

“I were born in Barton,” the girl whispered. “I know every stick and stone of the place; but I didn’t know ’twere as bad as I learned it that day.”