"Every night 'ee du be hanging about here, I know it, for Polly Ransom told me and getting I a bad name 'ee be!"
"Polly Ransom be a mischief making hussey!" the man said.
"She did but tell I the truth, Abram, for 'ee du be here all hours watching for I, so I daren't show my face beyond the walls."
"Who should I be watching and waiting for, if it be not 'ee, Betty? 'Ee be my promised wife, 'ee be!"
"I bain't!" she said. "I bain't, and I du hate 'ee!"
He laughed hoarsely.
"Slow—slow I be, slow o' speech and slow to make up my mind, yet when I du speak, then the words I hev said be spoken and can never be recalled, and when I du make up my mind, it be just the same, I never change, I never alter, I chose 'ee, Betty Hanson, from all other maids! I've set my heart on 'ee, my maid, and nothing on God's earth'll make me alter, nothing!"
They were words that might have been spoken with passion, yet he spoke without passion, with a cool, deadly certainty that frightened the girl infinitely more than blustering rage. Only his fingers betrayed his nervousness, they were plucking at each other for lack of something else to pluck at.
"A patient man I be, wunnerful, terribul patient," he went on slowly. "Night after night hev I come here, watching this door, knowing full well that sooner or later 'ee must pass it. Night, after night hev I gone away and said to myself, 'To-morrer,' and see 'ee've come, just as I 'lowed 'ee would——" he paused. "When'll the day be, Betty Hanson?"
"The day?"