Randal looked round the smelling, dirty shanty where the nine-inch draught space between wall and ceiling let in the red dust of the street, and he looked down on the little mean face in the quivering candle light.
“Don’t, Ted!” he said. “We can lock the place up. Come round to my———”
Ted shook his head.
“He were always that nervous,” he said. “I—I’d ruther stay wi’ him ter-night. Per’aps—if I’d done differently that day on Black Hill yards———”
“You could not have done differently,” said Randal. “And you know it. Now you will go back to Mains, and———”
“No!” Ted’s eyes were fixed on the still thing by his foot. “No! Never Mains an’ the township agin wi’out Jimmie—now. I loved him too dear fur that!”
“Then will you come out West with me?” said Randal.
“I don’t know. I don’t know nothin’ ter-night, I think. I’ll see yer ter-morrow. If yer’d jes’ go, Randal———”
Then Randal went back. And Effie scolded him, and cried and laughed at the set of the bandage round his head; and crept into his arms as they sat in the little dark parlour where the horsehair sofa and the dust made by the white ants did not show in the light that was given by the wide stars only.
