He says it with such a pitiable air, and his grimy tears appear so real, and he lies in the corner up against the hoarding so like a growth of fungus or any unwholesome excrescence produced there in neglect and impurity, that Allan Woodcourt is softened towards him. He says to the woman, “Miserable creature, what has he done?”

To which she only replies, shaking her head at the prostrate figure more amazedly than angrily, “O you Jo, you Jo. I have found you at last!”

“What has he done?” says Allan. “Has he robbed you?”

“No, sir, no. Robbed me? He did nothing but what was kind-hearted by me, and that’s the wonder of it.”

Allan looks from Jo to the woman, and from the woman to Jo, waiting for one of them to unravel the riddle.

“But he was along with me, sir,” says the woman, — “O you Jo! — he was along with me, sir, down at Saint Albans, ill, and a young lady Lord bless her for a good friend to me took pity on him when I durstn’t, and took him home—”

Allan shrinks back from him with a sudden horror.

“Yes, sir, yes. Took him home, and made him comfortable, and like a thankless monster he ran away in the night, and never has been seen or heard of since, till I set eyes on him just now. And that young lady that was such a pretty dear, caught his illness, lost her beautiful looks, and wouldn’t hardly be known for the same young lady now, if it wasn’t for her angel temper, and her pretty shape, and her sweet voice. Do you know it? You ungrateful wretch, do you know that this is all along of you and of her goodness to you?” demands the woman, beginning to rage at him as she recalls it, and breaking into passionate tears.

The boy, in rough sort stunned by what he hears, falls to smearing his dirty forehead with his dirty palm, and to staring at the ground, and to shaking from head to foot until the crazy hoarding against which he leans, rattles.

Allan restrains the woman, merely by a quiet gesture, but effectually.

“Richard told me—” He falters. “ — I mean, I have heard of this — don’t mind me for a moment, I will speak presently.”

He turns away, and stands for a while looking out at the covered passage. When he comes back, he has recovered his composure; except that he contends against an avoidance of the boy, which is so very remarkable, that it absorbs the woman’s attention.

“You hear what she says. But get up, get up!”

Jo, shaking and chattering, slowly rises, and stands, after the manner of his tribe in a difficulty, sideways against the hoarding, resting one of his high shoulders against it, and covertly rubbing his right hand over his left, and his left foot over his right.

“You hear what she says, and I know it’s true. Have you been here ever since?”

“Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone’s till this blessed morning,” replies Jo, hoarsely.

“Why have you come here now?”

Jo looks all round the confined court, looks at his questioner no higher than the knees, and finally answers: