Evelyn Ford smiled. "If you want to go, why should I try to stop you?"
After a few seconds of silence, Ian Yates suddenly dropped to his knees and kowtowed to Evelyn Ford. "Thank you for taking me in."
With that, he turned and walked away. His tattered clothes gave him a somewhat tragic air. Because of chronic malnutrition, the twelve-year-old was only the height of a seven or eight-year-old.
"He didn't take anything with him. In this cold, something bad's going to happen to him, isn't it?"
Penelope Parker tugged on Patrick Pence's sleeve, warning him to be quiet. Patrick, frightened, immediately shut his mouth and looked at Evelyn Ford in alarm.
"Quincy, in two hours, take a dog and two men and check the area three or four kilometers out. You should be able to find him."
Quincy paused, stunned. "We're going to look for him? Why?"
"Thanks to him, I discovered a few things. I can't just burn my bridges, can I?"
"Then why didn't you stop him when he left just now?"
