"Isolda!" and the fixed colour of her cheeks was a dull red patch on the pallor, "you don't mean to say that 'twas really 'im? You can't mean 'twas?"
"Oh, my dear, don't 'e ask me."
"I can't 'ardly believe," said the wife miserably, "that 'e'd do such a thing. 'E's always been a good-livin' feller, 'e don't drink and 'e never seemed to be after the maidens. Can't think," she said, surrendering the point as proven, "whatever ail the man."
The fact that Leadville was capable of using violence to gain his ends had sunk into Mrs. Tom's mind. She was like an old hen when a hawk is in the blue. "I don't want to keep Gray 'ome," she said uneasily, "but if Leadville worry the life out of 'er..."
Mrs. Byron had rallied from her consternation. At the bottom of her heart she preserved a little doubt. The story was perhaps substantially true, true enough to show in which direction the wind was blowing; but Gray, being a timid maid, the tale had not lost in the telling.
"'Tis a pack o' tommy-rot," she said at last, anger beginning to colour her unhappy amazement, "a man of his years runnin' after young maidens; but once Gray's married 'e won't think no more about it. 'Tis disgraceful of him; and, what's more, 'tis madness for'm to think she's goin' to 'av anything to do wi' an old man like 'e. Isolda, I do think 'tis time Gray was married."
"Iss, my dear, so do I."
"Well—why don't they?"
"It mean a good bit o' money to get married, you know," said Mrs. Tom who, in spite of her alert mind, was not capable of quick decisions, "and one thing more, marrying isn't horse-jocking."
"Why don't they put the banns in and get married on the quiet?"