‘You’ve scared her,’ said Marion. ‘She’s not used to being spoken to like that.’
‘No,’ said he, ‘and it ’ld be better for the both of you if you were. Just you put those things down and tell me the truth about Fellows.’
‘What do you mean, father?’ she asked. ‘I’ve told you he did all he could. He sat up with her.’
‘And that’s a damned lie to start with! Sat up with her, did he? Sat up spooning in the kitchen along with you. That’s more like it!’
She blushed, then straightened herself and faced him with her hands clasped before her. He was almost frightened of her burning eyes.
‘Who told you that?’ she said quietly.
‘Never you mind who told me. They that told me saw it with their own eyes. Saw you behaving like a labourer’s girl in a hedge. That’s a fine thing to come to! You deny it if you can!’
‘I’m not going to deny it,’ she said.
‘Then you’ve no shame left in you. Thank God your poor mother hasn’t lived to see it! I never thought to hear a daughter of mine speak like that!’
He waited for her to defend herself; but she stood as though petrified, cold, with a furnace of emotions flaming inside her. He took her by the arm, roughly, and shook her.