"No, I have not. I've come firstly to forgive you, which be a lot more than you deserve, and secondly to take you home."
"'Tis for me to forgive you I reckon; and why for should I?"
"I've worn black for a year and prayed for your soul and eaten the bread of tears and lived like the widow-woman I thought I was—just lived in the memory of our beautiful life together," she says. "That's all you've got to forgive, Nicky. And it didn't ought to be partickler hard I should think. Poison—poison—that's what you've been taking—poison—sucking it down from Bill Westaway, like a little child sucks cream."
"And you tell me you're going to marry the man—or think you are? What's that mean?"
Spider had come right alongside of her now.
"On one condition I shall certainly marry him, so you needn't pull no more faces. I told him I'd take him if he found all that was left of you in the river! And so I will." "But I ban't in the Dart! I ban't in the Dart! I'm alive!" cried Nicky—as if she didn't know it.
"Working along with these quarry men have made you dull seemingly," she answered. "It is true no doubt that you ban't in the Dart; but that's no reason why Billy Westaway shouldn't find you there. He's quite clever enough for that. He's a cunning, deep rogue, and I'll lay my life he'll find you there. He's separated us for a whole bitter year, to gain his own wicked ends, and if you can't see what he's done you must be mad after all."
"And what if I refuse to come back?" he asked, his monkey face still working.
"Then I'll marry Bill—rascal though he is. When I look into the past and think how he used to tell me you were running after the girls behind my back! But did I believe him? No! I boxed his ears and told him where the liars go. I didn't run away and hide from my lawful husband."
Nicky took it all in very slow.