‘My lodger.’
‘Oh . . . yes, I see . . .’ said the vicar’s wife. That evening Abner came in tired from a day’s work in the rain. His clothes were soaked; they steamed as he stood before the fire and filled the room with a harsh odour of wool and sweat. She told him calmly of her visitor and of the proposal that she had made. She did not say a word of her own inclinations.
‘What about the kids?’ he asked.
‘I couldn’t take them with me. They would go to the workhouse.’
‘To hell with the work’us!’ said Abner. ‘Not likely! What do they take you for?’
Mary smiled. She told him what they took her for.
Abner was seized with rage. ‘They’re a dirty lot of swine, that’s what they are!’ he said. ‘By God, I’d like to tell ’em of it!’
‘It’s natural,’ she said. ‘It looks like that.’
‘And what the hell does it matter what it looks like, so long as there bain’t nothing wrong? Old George knows it’s all right, and he’m the only one as matters.’
She did not answer.