"How dare you?" he cried, turning on Sally with flashing eyes. "How dare you look me in the face after treating me like this? Insultin' me—makin' a laughin' stock of me—"
He stopped, stammering with rage. The angry colour had now returned to his face; it was Sally who was pale. She stared at him aghast, and presently began to sob like a frightened child.
"I'm sure I dunno whatever I've done to mak' ye so mad," she cried brokenly. "I did but look to please ye."
"Please me!" cried John, stamping his foot. "How could it please me for you to give me a thing that no respectable man ought to touch—a thing as was stolen? I was a fool to think it could have been honestly come by; but when you gave it me, looking so innocent, I never guessed you'd gone and picked it off a hedge."
"I didna," sobbed Sally. "I took it out of Aunt Nancy's bundle. Hoo'll be soom mad when hoo finds out, and hoo'll thrash me for 't. Hoo reckoned to pop it as soon as we'd getten a bit further away fro' Saltfield."
John turned quite sick. This gift of Sally's had, then, been doubly stolen. He had been wearing an adornment which had been stolen from a thief! Words failed him, but he looked at Sally as though he could slay her.
"Dunnot be so mad," she pleaded, laying her hand upon his arm. "I didn't think to vex ye. I nobbut looked about for the best I could find. They flowers ye didn't seem to set mich store by, and I could on'y get a twothree now and again when theer was nobry about."
He shook her off with an angry laugh. "So the flowers were stolen, too! Now, look you, Sally, I'm goin' to have an end o' this. You may pick up yon handkerchief and take yourself off. I'll have no more to say to you after this. I'll have nothing to say to a thief. Don't you ever think to come botherin' me again, for I'll have no more to do wi' you."
She stood looking at him stupidly for a minute or two, and then, to his great annoyance and discomfiture, flung her arms round his neck, sobbing out inarticulate words of entreaty and remonstrance. She didn't think to vex him, she didn't think it was any harm.
He shook her off roughly and impatiently. Sally had evidently no sense of decency or even decorum. "Get out of my sight," he cried fiercely, "or if it comes to that I can go myself. I've done with you, I tell you—ye needn't come after me no more."