“What, more finery?” he exclaimed, turning on her, his face flushing angrily. “Do you intend to ruin me, woman?”
“I’ve earned it—every cent of it—and ten times more!” she said, straightening herself and regarding him with scornful, flashing eyes. “Do you suppose I’m a goin’ to cook, bake, wash, scrub, and mend for you fer nothin’? Not if I know myself, I ain’t!”
“Humph! We’ll see about that!” he grunted. “I’ll go to every store in Prairieville and Riverside, Frederic and Fairfield, and tell ’em not to trust you, fer I won’t be responsible fer yer debts.”
“Very well; then you’ll pay good wages to me or somebody else, or do your work yourself!”
He made no reply in words, but snatching the bonnet, carried it out to the kitchen, and threw it into the fire. She rushed after him, and made frantic efforts to save it; but he held her back, and grimly smiling, watched it slowly burn to ashes.
Then she dried her eyes and vowed vengeance; she would have a divorce and make him maintain her without work.
“I hain’t the least objection in the world to the first part o’ that,” he said, “but we’ll see about t’other.”
For hours darkness and silence had reigned supreme in the farm-house. Belinda had wept herself to sleep by the side of her now detested spouse, and he, too, was wrapped in slumber most profound.
The door from the kitchen opened with sudden, noiseless movement, and with equally noiseless step a tall, dark figure drew near the bed. Slowly and cautiously it turned the light of a dark lantern upon the face of the sleeping woman and bent over her a darkly scowling face whose eyes gleamed with concentrated rage and hate.
He held the lantern in his left hand, in the right a dagger. He glanced at it, at her, and back again at it. Had her eyes opened at that instant, perhaps she would have died of fright; but she slept on, breathing softly and regularly, though her face wore a sad and troubled look, and traces of tears were on her cheeks, her pillow wet with them.