Now as she came into the room, her thin face pale with worry, Francis looked at her, and old villain that he was, he wondered why he had ever married her.
“What are you going to say to him?” began the lady, planting herself before him, her bony arms akimbo.
Master Francis shrugged his shoulders.
“Say?” he said. “Why, naught!”
Mistress Eliza threw her hands above her head in a gesture of despair.
“You would,” she said. “I don’t believe you realize the state we are in. I don’t believe you care if your wife and child are thrown into the streets. I don’t believe you could say a word to save yourself hanging. In God’s truth, I don’t believe you have your wits about you, Master Myddleton.”
Francis sat still puffing at his pipe and his wife went on:
“Had you only done your duty, and gone out after the Mersea smugglers, I might be a fine lady this day, or at least——”
“A widow!” put in Francis, without removing the pipe from his mouth.
“Oh!” Mistress Eliza gasped. “For shame, Master Myddleton, are you a coward?”