Gaunt laughed as he turned home about. He did not follow the wandering line of the stream this time, but took a straight course across the fields—a course that led him, as it chanced, to the gate over which Peggy Mathewson was leaning, still fighting despair as best she might. Her back was turned to him, but even in the dim light Gaunt could not mistake the figure; he bit his lip impatiently, and wondered if he should pass on and climb the wall a little further up.
“Nay, she would know, though she won’t seem to see me now,” he muttered. “Best have it out, and have done with it.”
He moved quietly to the gate, and laid a hand on her arm. “Peggy—” he began.
She swept his hand away, and turned on him, and Reuben Gaunt, who had seen mainly the softer side of women until now, was awed by the storm that broke about him. She said little; but in her voice, in every movement of her body, there was contempt and loathing.
“Get you home!” she cried, pointing across the grey haze of the fields. “Get home to your kennel, Reuben Gaunt. D’ye think I want such as you to come touching me?”
“But, lass—”
“Ay, and but, lass and but, lass—and you want to explain, and explain—fool Reuben, haven’t I learned your tricks and your wheedlesome ways by this time? Little Miss Good Intent is younger to ’em. Come out of your kennel to-morn, and talk to her; she’ll believe ye, maybe.”
“We’d best not part in anger,” he stammered.
“Hadn’t we? ’Tis the only way we are like to part. I’m waiting for my lad, as I told Miss Priscilla just now. He’ll explain to ye, Reuben Gaunt, if that’s what lies in your mind.”
The suggestion of physical cowardice—not true of him at any time—stung Gaunt as much as anything the girl had said or left unsaid.