THE EFFECT OF A SONG
Late that afternoon, in Robert Rutter's meadow at the back of the inn, a man and a woman stood in close conversation. The man was Jem Pound, the woman Elizabeth Ryan.
"Then you have not seen him yet?"
"No, not yet; I have had no chance."
"You mean that you have been drunk, Jem Pound!"
"Not to say drunk, missis. But I've been over to a town called Melmerbridge, and I went a long way round so as not to cross the moor. They're shooting up there all day. It'd be no sort o' use tackling him there."
"But surely they are back by now?" exclaimed Mrs. Ryan, impatiently. "I tell you he must be seen to-day—this evening—now."
"Ay, ay; I'm just going. Straight along this path it is, across a few fields, and there you are—opposite the house; and you may trust me——"
"I know; I have seen it for myself. But I am going too."
This was precisely what Pound did not want. He was treating the woman with unwonted civility, not to say respect, with a view to the more easily dissuading her from dangerous projects. And this was a dangerous project from Pound's point of view; but Mrs. Ryan had set her soul upon it. Argue as Jem would, she was bent upon seeing her husband with her own eyes, and at once. And there, with that thin white face of hers she might go and get him actually to pity her, and spoil everything—for Jem Pound.