"If I will not put on my hat?" she said.
She dared not bind herself in direct negation to the refusal, but she suggested the act—drawing pride for it indirectly—with the twofold intention of expressing a contemplated resolve she was far from feeling, and of arriving at some knowledge of the degree to which the man was prepared to push his ill-gotten power.
"But you will," he said.
There was something so black about the insinuation—as though he himself were anxious to save her the sight of what might be in store for her if she persisted—that she dared hazard no second contingency. They remained for a second or two in silence, and the slow melting of her obstinacy into consent was as palpable during these moments as the melting away of a fragment of ice on a fishmonger's slab. No other word passed between them then. Very quietly the schoolmaster opened the door and stood by the wall while the girl slid by him, cowed and trembling.
The postmaster, sitting on the high Governmental stool in the Post Office, with his back to the window and his newspaper held up above his head to catch the last red reflection from the darkening sky, staring upward at the crowded firmament of print through his great glasses as though he were star-gazing, heard the front door close, and looking over the ribbed glass screen into the roadway, saw Pam and the schoolmaster pass together in the direction of the brewer's corner.
"Emma," said he, putting his head in at Miss Morland's door next moment; and more urgently still, not discerning her there at first in the dusk: "Emma lass, are ye theer?"
"Ay, ah seed 'em," said the severe voice of his daughter. "Div ye want lamp noo?"
CHAPTER XXIX
That same night the Ullbrig chimes were as clear to hear at Cliff Wrangham as though they 'd rung in Dixon's stackgarth, and Dixon shook his head.
"Yon 's a bad sound," said he dubiously. "Ah 'm jealous we s'll be gettin' some rain before morn."