“I’d be driven into fifty corners before I’d marry two wives,” retorted the Squire. “And now, sir, what do you mean to do?”
“I can’t tell,” answered Nash.
“A pretty kettle of fish this is! What do you suppose your father would have said to it?”
“I’m sure I can’t tell,” repeated Nash helplessly, biting his lips to get some life into them.
“And what’s the matter with your hands that they are so hot and white?”
Nash glanced at his hands, and hid them away in his pockets. He looked like a man consumed by inward fever.
“I have not been over well for some time past,” said he.
“No wonder—with the consciousness of this discovery hanging over your head! It might have sent some men into their graves.”
Nash drummed upon the window pane. What in the world to do, what to say, evidently he knew not.
“You must put away this Jez—this lady,” went on the Squire. “It was she who bewitched you; ay, and set herself out to do it, as all the parish saw. Let her go back to her father: you might make some provision for her: and instal your wife here in her proper place. Poor thing! she is so meek and patient! She won’t hear a word said against you; thinks you are a saint. I think you a scoundrel, Nash: and I tell you so to your face.”