And she saith, like a child when 'tis naughty, and knoweth well that it is, but likes not to say so, "What thing?"
He answered, "Thou canst not truly mean to shut me here to bring dishonor upon me, who have loved thee better than man ever loved woman" (for so do all men say, and truly think).
She said, "Thy life is more to me than thy honor."
And he groaned aloud, crying, "Oh God! that I have lived to hear thee say it!" and again there fell a silence, save for the whispering of the night in the trees above us and the creeping of small creatures through the dry grass. 'Twas almost curfew-time, and there was one star in the black front o' th' night, like the star on the forehead of a black stallion.
When he spake again his voice was very fierce, and he saith, "Patience, I do command thee to release me."
But she spake never a word.
And again he said, "Better let me out to love thee, than keep me here until I hate thee."
She shivered, leaning against the door, until the big bolt rattled in its braces.
And he said yet again, "By the Lord God, an thou dost keep me here to sully my good name, and that of thy father and mother, who have been to me even as my own flesh and blood, I will never live with thee again as man with wife, but will go forth into the New World to live and to die with thy handmaid dishonor!"
And she was silent.