"You dare to stand there before me and tell that damnable lie. Margery! Margery! And you've lived with her for near twenty years and can think it! What filth are you made of? What poisonous, beastly stuff has got into you? Her—the clean, pure thing—with nought but honest blood in her veins and honest thoughts in her mind! Her—adultery—you're a madman!"
"You'd better go," answered Bullstone quietly. "If she doesn't own it, so much the worse. There's no defence for either of them. I'm not mad, though my Maker knows I've endured enough to make me. I want to hear nothing about her—or him. I want to be free, and I mean to be free."
Then Judith Huxam spoke. She had been sitting motionless while her husband walked up and down the room. She had turned very pale, when Jacob stated his determination, and she had put her hand up to her breast and kept it there. She was quite collected and showed no emotion.
"And who is the man, Jacob Bullstone?" she asked.
"Adam Winter is her paramour."
"That godly, steadfast creature!"
Barlow spoke and bade his wife rise and accompany him.
"We'll be gone. This must be answered by others than us," he said.
But Mrs. Huxam did not move. A strange expression was in her face. She looked coldly and curiously at Jacob. Then a faint flush lightened her pallor.
"The mills of God grind slow but exceeding sure," she said. "I understand; I know what's happened now, and you'll know presently. Eighteen and more years ago I came into this room for the first time, and I saw a sight that shook me to the roots of my being. I saw that you'd flung another book to lie on the Bible. Looking back, I've often wondered why I didn't stop your marriage with our daughter on that. But the Lord chose that things should go on; and they went on. And He was looking ahead to this; and, in His mercy, He showed me yesterday that nothing better than this could have happened. He showed me yesterday, when you spoke blasphemies in my ears, that it was time Margery left you if she was to save her soul. So I'm not surprised at what you've told me to-night. This is all God's plan. He chooses strange tools to do His work, as you said yesterday, and He's chose you yourself and no other, to part you from your wife. You understand that, don't you? It ain't Adam Winter, or any other man, that's come between you and the mother of your children. It's yourself—led to it by an outraged God. You are one of the doomed and always was, as I've known too well these many days, though, Christian like, I hoped and prayed for you. But the Lord knew, and He's took our child from the evil to come and—hear this—He'll take your children from the evil to come also. There must be offences, Jacob Bullstone, but woe—woe to them that bring them! Our child shall hear your voice no more as you have sworn; and neither shall you hear her voice, nor see her again, nor yet her shadow. If you'd been a saint till now, this piece of work would have damned you, and henceforth you'll go the scorn of every self-respecting woman and the hate of every man. And you'll call on the hills to cover you, but they won't."