"Do it! You mean, I suppose, to say that I must go there. Is anybody to come and fetch me?"
"Nobody will come. Only you must promise that you will be there. I have promised for you. You will go; will you not?" She stood leaning over him, half embracing him, waiting for an answer; but for a while he gave none. "You will tell me that you will do what I have undertaken for you, Josiah?"
"I think I would rather that they fetched me. I think that I will not go myself."
"And have policemen come for you into the parish! Mr. Walker has promised that he will send over his phaeton. He sent me home in it to-day."
"I want nobody's phaeton. If I go I will walk. If it were ten times the distance, and though I had not a shoe left to my feet I would walk. If I go there at all, of my own accord, I will walk there."
"But you will go?"
"What do I care for the parish? What matters it who sees me now? I cannot be degraded worse than I am. Everybody knows it."
"There is no disgrace without guilt," said his wife.
"Everybody thinks me guilty. I see it in their eyes. The children know of it, and I hear their whispers in the school, 'Mr. Crawley has taken some money.' I heard the girl say it myself."
"What matters what the girl says?"