The quarto Bible was laid open before him at the fly-leaf, and while he was reading with slowly travelling eyes Mrs Tulliver entered the room, but stood in mute surprise to find her husband down already, and with the great Bible before him.
“Ah,” he said, looking at a spot where his finger rested, “my mother was Margaret Beaton; she died when she was forty-seven,—hers wasn’t a long-lived family; we’re our mother’s children, Gritty and me are,—we shall go to our last bed before long.”
He seemed to be pausing over the record of his sister’s birth and marriage, as if it were suggesting new thoughts to him; then he suddenly looked up at Tom, and said, in a sharp tone of alarm:
“They haven’t come upo’ Moss for the money as I lent him, have they?”
“No, father,” said Tom; “the note was burnt.”
Mr Tulliver turned his eyes on the page again, and presently said:
“Ah—Elizabeth Dodson—it’s eighteen year since I married her——”
“Come next Ladyday,” said Mrs Tulliver, going up to his side and looking at the page.
Her husband fixed his eyes earnestly on her face.
“Poor Bessy,” he said, “you was a pretty lass then,—everybody said so,—and I used to think you kept your good looks rarely. But you’re sorely aged; don’t you bear me ill-will—I meant to do well by you—we promised one another for better or for worse——”