"I've warned you!"
Todd did not believe her. He thought she was half in fun; and he kept his place by her side resolutely.
Marigold quickened her pace, and answered his remarks only in monosyllables; but he was not to be driven off.
Reaching the street in which she lived, he again asked: "I say, who's been setting you against me?"
"I've heard one thing," Marigold said slowly. "And that is—that you've been seen—taking too much."
"Oh, come now! You ain't so particular as all that! If I did take just a drop more than I needed, once in a year, what then? A man can't always be shilly-shallying. I vow it wasn't more than a drop,—and just about once a year."
"Or once a month," said Marigold. Then she looked straight at him, and said firmly,—"I'd sooner do anything in the world—I'd sooner die—than marry a man who was on the way to become a drunkard."
"Now, Marigold! What nonsense you do talk!"
"I mean it," said Marigold. She had trembled a little at the beginning of their talk, but now she trembled no longer. "I would sooner die."
"It's all the fault of them strait-laced folks up at the Vicarage, meddling with what don't concern them."