19/30 She hoped it was nothing very bad. The wretched woman's movements had been wholly determined by the movements of Pinker; and she had been in the habit of leaving the child in the servants' hall, where the cook, being an affectionate motherly woman, made much of him, and fed him with strange food. He had had an "attack" the last time she did this, and Swinny, who valued her place for more reasons than one, had been afraid to say anything about it. Preoccupied with her great passion, she had been insensible to the signs of sickness that showed themselves from day to day. In other words, there had been shameful, pitiful neglect. |