"'Tisn' what we doon; 'tis what 'e doon. An' annyhow it had to bae."
Every week Rowcliffe came to see her and every week Jim said to him:
"She's at it still and I caan't move 'er."
And every week Rowcliffe said: "Wait. She'll be better before long."
And Jim waited.
He waited till one afternoon in February, when they were again in the stable together. He had turned his back on her for a moment.
When he looked round she was gone from her seat on the cornsacks. She was standing by the window-sill with the bottle of chlorodyne in her hand and at her lips. He thought she was smelling it.
She tilted her head back. Her eyes slewed sidelong toward him. They quivered as he leaped to her.
She had not drunk a drop and he knew it, but she clutched her bottle with a febrile obstinacy. He had to loosen her little fingers one by one.
He poured the liquid into the stable gutter and flung the bottle on to the dung heap in the mistal.
"What were you doing wi' thot stoof?" he said.