‘About why you left The Dyke. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I did tell you. You know as well as I do.’
‘You never said a word about Marion. Not one word!’
‘Who’s been putting that rubbidge into your head?’ said Abner angrily.
‘Rubbish!’ she repeated. ‘You can call it that now! But if you’d left the girl alone we shouldn’t be where we are now, not knowing where to look for a shilling and the children likely to want for bread.’
‘You’ve got a maggot in your head, missus,’ he said. ‘Why I left The Dyke’s got nothing to do with Miss Marion, so don’t you think it.’
‘Oh, I’m tired of you!’ she cried. ‘It’s no use your telling off your lies to me. I’m dead sick of you and your women . . . you and your Susie Hinds and Marion Prossers! Running after loose women with your eyes shut and never a thought for those that keep themselves decent like me. And if there was another caught your eye to-morrow, you’d be up and away after her the same. You’re no better than an animal! Like the rest of men: they’re all the same!’
She stood up to him, trembling with rage. At that moment she was ugly, and rising to the violence of her challenge, he hated her. He lost sight of her weakness. All he saw was her impudent provocation. An answering anger fumed up into his head and carried him away so that he could easily have struck her. He came towards her with his hand lifted.
‘Don’t! Don’t!’ she shrieked in terror.
He dropped his hand and walked straight out of the room. Left alone, she was overborne with shame for what she had done, and cried for her lost dignity. Never in her life had she so abased herself. ‘But he lied to me! He lied to me!’ she told herself. ‘If he hadn’t lied to me it wouldn’t have happened!’ Little by little the turmoil of her thoughts abated and she began to remember his goodness, his patience, all that she owed to him. ‘If he had struck me,’ she thought, ‘I should have deserved it.’ She almost wished that his hand had fallen, for nothing less than a blow could have justified her violence and her base ingratitude. The only thing with which she could comfort herself was a firm determination that she would never offend him again. By nothing but the most complete sacrifice of her feelings could she repay him a thousandth part of what she owed him.