'O' course,' he said, 'we know it inna true, minister. Mr. James shouldna ha' taken it on his lips.' He looked defiantly at James out of his mild brown eyes.
Edward did not hear what he said. Hazel was puzzling over James' meaning. Why had he made Edward like this? Love gave her a quickness that she did not naturally possess, and at last she understood. It was one of the few insults that could touch her, because it was levelled at her primitive womanhood. Her one instinct was for flight. But there was Edward. She turned her back on the semi-circle of eyes, and put a trembling hand on Edward's shoulder. He grasped it.
'Forgive me, dear!' he whispered. 'And go, now, go into the woods; they're not as cold as these. When I've done with them we'll go away, far away from hell.'
'I dunna mind 'em,' said Hazel. 'What for should I, my soul?'
Then she saw how dank and livid Edward's face had become, and the anguished rage of the lover against what had hurt her darling flamed up in her.
'Curse you!' she said, letting her eyes, dark-rimmed and large with tears, dwell on each man in turn. 'Curse you for tormenting my Ed'ard, as is the best man in all the country—and you'm nought, nought at all!'
The everlasting puzzle, why the paltry and the low should have power to torment greatness, was brooding over her mind.
'The best!' said James, avoiding her eyes, as they all did. 'A hinfidel!'
'I have become an unbeliever,' Edward said, 'not because I am unworthy of your God, but because He is unworthy of me. Hazel, wait for me at the edge of the wood.'
Hazel crept out of the room. As she went, she heard him say: