"Is it settled?" asked the man.

"It is, sir," said the miller. "You'll excuse my missus being as
she is, but it's fretting for the child we've a lost" -

"I understand, I understand," said the stranger, hastily. He was
pulling back the rings of a silk netted purse, which he had drawn
mechanically from his pocket, and which, from some sudden start of
his, fell chinking on to the floor. Whatever the thought was which
startled him, he thought it so sharply that he looked up in fear
that he had said it aloud. But he had not spoken, and the miller
had no other expression than that of an eager satisfaction on his
face as the stranger counted out the gold by the flaring light of
the tallow candle.

"A quarter's pay in advance," he said briefly. "It will be paid
quarterly, you understand." After which, and checking himself in a
look towards the child, he went out, followed by the woman.

In the round-house he paused however, and looked back into the
meagre, dimly lighted room, where the little bundle upon the bed lay
weeping. For a moment, a storm of irresolution seemed to seize him,
and then muttering, "It can't be helped for the present, it can't be
helped," he hurried towards the vehicle, in the back seat of which
the woman was already seated.

The driver touched his hat to him as he approached, and turned the
cushion, which he had been protecting from the rain. The stranger
stumbled over the cloak as he got in, and, cursing the step, bade
the man drive like something which had no connection with driving.