This being over, she insisted on his not accompanying her farther.
Anthony made her pledge her word of honour as a married woman, to bring her husband to the identical spot where they stood at three o'clock in the afternoon of Sunday week. She promised it.
“I'll write home to th' old farmer—a penny,” said Anthony, showing that he had considered the outlay and was prepared for it.
“And uncle,” she stipulated in turn, “they are not to see me yet. Very soon; but not yet. Be true to me, and come alone, or it will be your fault—I shall not appear. Now, mind. And beg them not to leave the farm. It will kill father. Can you not,” she said, in the faded sweetness of her speech, “could you not buy it, and let father be your tenant, uncle? He would pay you regularly.”
Anthony turned a rough shoulder on her.
“Good-bye, Dahly. You be a good girl, and all 'll go right. Old farmer talks about praying. If he didn't make it look so dark to a chap, I'd be ready to fancy something in that. You try it. You try, Dahly. Say a bit of a prayer to-night.”
“I pray every night,” Dahlia answered.
Her look of meek despair was hauntingly sad with Anthony on his way home.
He tracked her sorrowfulness to the want of money; and another of his terrific vague struggles with the money-demon set in.