"Iss: wanted to know if you was married. I reckon he meant that for a bit o' pleasantness."
"Not that! Ah, not that!"
Job laid down knife and fork with their points resting on the rim of his plate, and, with a lump of pasty in one cheek, looked at his sister. She had pushed back her chair a bit, and her fingers were plucking the edge of the table-cloth.
"Not that!" she repeated once more, and hardly above a whisper. She did not lift her eyes. Before Job could speak—
"He was my lover," she said, and shivered.
"Mar—ty—"
She looked up now, hardened her ugly, twitching face, forced her eyes to meet her brother's, and went on breathlessly—
"I swear to you, Job—here, across this table—he was my lover; and I ruined 'en. He was the only man, 'cept you and father, that ever kissed me; and I betrayed 'en. As the Lord liveth, I stood up in the box and swore away his name to save mine. An' what's more, he made me."
"Mar—ty Lear!"
"Don't hinder me, Job. It's God's truth I'm tellin' 'ee. His folks were a low lot, an' father'd have broken every bone o' me. But we used to meet in the orchard 'most every night. Don't look so, brother. I'm past sixty, an' nothin' known; an' now evil an' good's the same to me."