"Betty, do 'ee know what I and your grandmother were talking about?"
"I doan't and I bain't curus to hear!" she said. She made to pass him, but he held his ground.
"'Twere about 'ee!"
"Then 'twere nothing good," she said. "My left ear were burning cruel and now I know!"
"Betty," he said, "wait, 'ee shall, 'ee shall I say, wait, there's summut I must say to 'ee!"
"Let me—pass!"
"No, no." He caught her by the arm and held her.
"Betty, I du love 'ee so, I want 'ee to wife! If I don't have 'ee no one else shall, no one, I swear! Look at me, stubborn o' tongue I be—and difficult it be for me to speak the words I want to say, but 'tis all in this: 'I love 'ee better than life, better than death. I love 'ee mad; mad I be, I tell 'ee wi' love for 'ee! My maid, I'd die for 'ee and live for 'ee and kill they as come between us! Betty, Betty, give yourself to me—to—cherish—" He paused, the words of the marriage service came to him uncertainly, "to hold and to keep, to cherish until death us du part. Give yourself to me, for never and you go through the whole world will 'ee find a man as loves 'ee half so well!"
"I bain't a marrying maid!" she said. "And I'll not marry 'ee or anyone else and 'ee last and leastest of all, Abram Lcstwick. I'll never marry 'ee, never, never!"
"And I swear by Heaven 'ee shall!" he cried. His fingers were at work on her arm, she felt and hated the touch of them. Hateful fingers—long and sinuous, with their horrible, spatulated tips, they reminded her of writhing snakes, with their venomous, flattened heads, just that! She tried to break away from him.