One day Mrs Mamble brought her the news that Susan Hind was being married in less than a week to Badger, the keeper. She now saw so little of Abner that she could not be sure that his old relations with Susie had ceased, but she found herself snatching eagerly at an occasion for wounding him.
‘I hope you’re going to your old friend’s wedding, Abner,’ she said.
‘I don’t know nothing about one,’ he said. ‘I’ve no friends in these parts that I know to.’
‘Susie Hind . . . she’s marrying Mr Badger next Monday.’
She watched him carefully.
‘Well, he’s welcome!’ said Abner, with a laugh.
And then, instead of being relieved, she found herself overwhelmed by a new suspicion. He would not have spoken like that unless he had been entangled with some other woman. She wondered who it could be, and a few days later began to ply him with deliberate questions about Marion Prosser. He did not guess what she was driving at; imagined that she was still brooding over her old slight.
‘I know naught about her,’ he said.
‘Do you like her any better than you did?’
‘I don’t mind her,’ said Abner. ‘At any rate she don’t werrit me with questions about you.’