“They turned me loose next morning, and I ran out of that town laughing and shouting like the man who was delivered from devils by Our Lord. As I had been, you see. He worked through that woman, and she is a blessed saint, for what she did for me—I mean it as I say it—was a miracle. Where is she now?”

How did I know? Mrs Dempster was often in my mind, but whenever I thought of her I put the thought aside with a sick heart, as part of a past that was utterly done. I had tried to get Deptford out of my head, just as Boy had done, and for the same reason; I wanted a new life. What Surgeoner told me made it clear that any new life must include Deptford. There was to be no release by muffling up the past.

We talked for some time, and I liked him more and more. When at last I left I laid a ten-dollar bill on the table.

“Thank you, Mr Ramsay,” said he. “This will get us the soup kettle we need, and a load of wood as well. Do you see now how prayers are answered?”

(7)

Back to Deptford, therefore, at the first chance, pretending I wanted to consult Mr Mahaffey about the deadbeat who had bought the Banner from me and was still in debt for more than half of the price. The magistrate counselled patience. But I got what I wanted, which was the address of the aunt who had taken Mrs Dempster after the death of her husband. She was not, as Milo Papple thought, a widow, but an old maid, a Miss Bertha Shanklin, and she lived in Weston. He gave me the address, without asking why I wanted it.

“A bad business, that was,” he said. “She seemed a nice little person. Then—a madwoman! Struck by a snowball. I don’t suppose you have any idea who threw it, have you? No, I didn’t imagine you did, or you would have said so earlier. There was guilt, you know; undoubtedly there was guilt. I don’t know quite what could have been done about it, but look at the consequences! McCausland says definitely she became a moral idiot—no sense at all of right and wrong—and the result was that terrible business in the pit. I remember that you were there. And the ruin of her husband’s life. Then the lad running away when he was really no more than a baby. I’ve never seen such grief as hers when she finally realized he had gone. McCausland had to give her very heavy morphia before Miss Shanklin could remove her. Yes, there was guilt, whether any kind of charge could have been laid or not. Guilt, and somebody bears it to this day!”

The old man’s vehemence, and the way he kept looking at me over and under and around his small, very dirty spectacles, left no doubt that he thought I knew more than I admitted, and might very well be the guilty party myself. But I saw no sense in telling him anything; I still had a grudge against Boy for what he had done, but I remember too that if I had not been so sly Mrs Dempster would not have been hit. I was anxious to regard the whole thing as an accident, past care and past grief.