Nelw gasped.
“A pound head an’ a ha’penny tail, I say,” he continued roughly, “Aye, an’ the time is comin’, comin’ soon, when she’ll get herself into trouble, flauntin’ around with those frocks on, all decked out, an’ all her false seemin’, her face painted and powdered, an’ her hair dyed. The deceitful thing!”
“Och, Pedr, don’t!”
But Pedr, excited beyond self-control by the workings of his imagination, could not stop. The blanching face before him was no more than a cipher, it expressed nothing to him.
“Tut! that I will. An’ what is it Catrin Griffiths knows an’ I don’t? Yes?”
There was a cry of “Pedr!” Nelw shivered, her eyes widened and stared at him. It was so still in that room that the flutter of the draught sucking the smoke up the chimney could be heard. Pedr sat motionless in his chair, the reality of what he had done yet to reach him. Nelw moved, and in an instant he was beside her.
“Dearie, dearie, what have I done?”
“Och, nothin’—nothin’ at all,” she answered, her face twitching helplessly.
“But I did; och, I was beside myself; I didn’t know what I was sayin’!” Pedr paused, he looked at her longingly: “Nelw, little lamb, is it somethin’ I ought to know?”
“It’s nothin’, nothin’ at all,” she replied, her eyes still staring at him, her hands lying open upon her lap, palms up. And there she sat and sighed and sighed, refusing to answer any of Pedr’s questions; and, every once in a while, moaning, “Not him, dear God, och! not him!”