As soon as ever she saw him she wiped her eyes, and asked him, grimly, what he wanted there. Wylie stared at the reception; but replied stoutly, that it was pretty well known by this time what he wanted in that quarter.
"Well, then," said Nancy, "Want will be your master. Why did you never tell me Miss Helen was in that ship? my sweet, dear mistress as was, that I feel for like a mother. You left her to drown, and saved your own great useless carcass, and drowned she is, poor dear. Get out o' my sight, do."
"It wasn't my fault, Nancy," said Wylie, earnestly. "I didn't know who she was, and I advised her to come with us; but she would go with that parson chap."
"What parson chap? What a liar you be! She is Wardlaw's sweetheart, and don't care for no parsons. If you didn't know you was to blame, why didn't you tell me a word of your own accord? You kep' dark. Do you call yourself a man, to leave my poor young lady to shift for herself?"
"She had as good a chance to live as I had," said Wylie, sullenly.
"No, she hadn't; you took care o' yourself. Well, since you are so fond of yourself, keep yourself to yourself, and don't come here no more. After this, I hate the sight on ye. You are like the black dog in my eyes, and always will be. Poor, dear Miss Helen! Ah, I cried when she left—my mind misgave me; but little I thought she would perish in the salt seas, and all for want of a man in the ship. If you had gone out again after in the steamboat—Mr. Penfold have told me all about it—I'd believe you weren't so much to blame. But no; lolloping and looking about all day for months. There's my door, Joe Wylie; I can't cry comfortable before you as had a hand in drowning of her. You and me is parted forever. I'll die as I am, or I'll marry a man; which you ain't one, nor nothing like one. Is he waiting for you to hold the door open, Mr. Penfold? or don't I speak plain enough? Them as I gave the sack to afore you didn't want so much telling."
"Well, I'm going," said Wylie, sullenly. Then, with considerable feeling, "This is hard lines."
But Nancy was inexorable, and turned him out, with the 2,000 pounds in his pocket.
He took the notes out of his pocket, and flung them furiously down in the dirt.
Then he did what everybody does under similar circumstances, he picked them up again, and pocketed them, along with the other dirt they had gathered.