“There, it wean’t do,” roared Joe; “I wean’t be talked ower;” but the vicar hardly heard his words, for he was striding thoughtfully away.
Volume Two—Chapter Six.
By the Chalk Pit.
Though Sim Slee had omitted on two occasions to convey letters to Daisy Banks making appointments for meetings in different parts of the country walks round Dumford, Daisy had had a pretty good supply of messages; and feeling as it were compelled to obey, she had gone on more than one occasion with sinking heart, to return with aching eyes, whose lids looked swollen and red with weeping.
For the girl was simply wretched, and time after time she looked back to the days when her heart was whole, and as she threw herself wearily on her bed she sobbed herself again and again to sleep, wishing that her very life were ended; the deceit she was obliged to practise, the anger of her mother, and the open sneers and innuendoes of neighbours wounding her so that the smart was almost more than she could bear.
Whether Dick chose east, west, north, or south for the appointment, poor Daisy could never get out of the town without encountering some one to give her a peculiar look, more than once driving the poor girl to make pretence of calling at some place that she did not want to visit, and as often turning her back home, making Richard Glaire, who had been kept waiting and “fooled,” as he called it, write her the cruellest and most angry letters, some even of a threatening nature.
It happened one evening that poor Daisy, who had broken faith the night before, was going slowly up the High Street, with a basket on her arm, as if bound on some marketing expedition, when it seemed as if it was impossible that she could get to her trysting place, where she knew that Dick must have been waiting for an hour.
First the landlord of the Bull was standing at his door smoking, and he gave a sneering nod, which seemed to say, “I know where you are going, my lass.”