Nay, said I, I’m free.
Murgatroyd halted, swayed between longing and loathing. Then murder got into his heart again, as he turned the bend of the road.
Nita Langrish was sitting on the bridge-wall, threading her willows in and out.
“Making baskets by moonlight?” he asked.
“Finishing one for a lass up Dale that’s courting. So it’s only right to weave moonshine in between the withers.”
“We’re courting, Nita, you and me.”
“It takes two for that,” she said, and went on with her work as if she were alone.
A great madness came on Murgatroyd. She sat there in the moonlight so mocking and aloof, yet so enticing, that the helpless rage of years found tongue. He cursed the day she came into Garsykes first, cursed every meeting with her since, till his hoarse voice seemed like a flail about her. For a moment Nita was afraid—of him, and of the stark truth he spoke. Then she gathered her old dominion round her, her old self-will and vanity.
“You’ve been at the drinking again,” she said, with gentle insolence.
“I have—drinking the dregs, like many another that’s come your way. You draw your skirts away fro’ Widow Mathison at the inn, same as if she was dirt. But she’s got what you’ve not—a heart in her feckless body.”