He left her and she locked the cottage door behind him. After that Minnie fell shivering upon a seat beside the fire, and buried her face in her hands. She did not fear for herself; she was only frightened at the strange power within her that had from the first taught her to read this man aright. A secret voice had always spoken the truth to her heart concerning him, and now in her sight he stood very knave from head to heel. Even his faithful love was to her a loathsome circumstance.
She saw in Titus Sim the unknown accomplice of the dead drunkard. Their united cunning had planned the subtle and skilful raids at Middlecott; again and again they had robbed the plantations: again and again Sim, unsuspected, had slipped from the Court by night and joined Parkinson at his work. But to Sim alone, his evil genius quickened by love, had belonged the sequel to the tragedy in Middlecott Lower Hundred. After Thorpe fell, he had hastened to the empty house on the Moor, well knowing that it would be empty. The gun he had taken and the gun he had hidden where he might find it on the first light of day. And now he had left her to choose between Daniel’s honour and himself, or neither. One depended upon the other. Her momentary refusal had lifted the curtain from him, and showed her in a lightning flash the real man. Life was nothing to him. He had already driven her husband to death, and if she refused him, she guessed that another swift tragedy would follow upon the refusal. She thought long and deeply how best to plan the future. But Titus Sim entered very little into her calculations.
While still she sat in thought, there came a knock at the door, and Jane Beer asked to be admitted. Her husband followed her, and while Mrs Beer kissed Minnie, the publican shook her hand with all his might.
“’Tis closing time,” he said. “But, though we could close the bar, me an’ Jane couldn’t close our own eyes till we’d comed over and wished you joy—first a girl and then a boy—according to the old saying. Sim tells us you’ve consented at last, so soon all sorrow will be past, an’ if I don’t tip you a fine rhyme ’pon your wedding day, ’tis pity.”
The woman smiled and thanked them.
“And Johnny have brought over a drink,” said Jane Beer. “’Tis some sparkling wine—one bottle of twelve as we’ve had ever since we opened house. An’ only one bottle sold all these years. Champagne, according to the label.”
Mr Beer drew forth the liquor.
“Now you shall taste stuff as’ll make you feel as though you’d got wings,” he told her, “and if you haven’t got no wine-glasses, cups will do just as well.”
But Minnie put her hand on his and prevented him from cutting the wires.