The girl stood erect and scornful.
"I'm glad you found them; now I can tell the truth."
"Truth!" thundered Michael. "Truth—what do you knaw 'bout Truth, darter o'
Baal? Your life's a lie, your tongue's rotten in your mouth wi' lyin'.
Never look in no honest faace agin!"
"You'd do best to bide still while I tell 'e what this here means," said Joan quietly. The man's anger alarmed her no more than the squeak of a caged rat. "I ban't no darter o' Baal, an' the money's come by honest. I've lied afore, but never shall again. An' I've let Joe go 'is ways thinkin' I loved en, which I doan't. I be tokened to a furriner from London, an' he's took me for his awn, an' he be gwaine to come down-long mighty soon an' take me away. But I couldn't tell 'e nothin' of that 'cause he bid me keep my mouth shut. So theer."
"'Took 'e for 'is awn'! Wheer is he, then? Why be you here?"
"He'm comin', I tell 'e. He'm a true man, an' he shawed me what 'tis to love."
"Bought you, you damned harlot!"
She knew the word was vile, but a shred of John Barron's philosophy supported her.
"My awnly sin is I've lied to you, faither; an' you've no right to call me evil names."
"Never call me faither no more, lewd slut! I be no faither o' thine, nor never was. God A'mighty! a Tregenza a wanton! I'd rather cut my hand off than b'lieve it so. It's this—this—blood-money—the price o' a damned sawl! No more lyin'. I knaw—I knaw—an' the picksher—the ship of a true man. It did ought to break your heart to see it, if you had wan. A devil-spawned painting feller, in coorse. An' his black heart happy an' content 'cause he've sent this filth. You stare, wi' your mother's eyes—you stare, an' stare. Hell's yawning for 'e, wretched wummon, an' for him as brot 'e to it!"