"Isaac, are yer comin' up?"
The question maddened him. He turned to look at her more fixedly.
"Comin' up? Noa, I'm not comin' up—so now know. Take yerself off, an' be quick."
She trembled.
"Are yer goin' to sleep down 'ere, Isaac?"
"Aye, or wherever I likes: it's no concern o' yourn. I'm no 'usband o' yourn from this day forth. Take yerself off, I say!—I'll 'ave no thief for my wife!"
But, instead of going, she stepped down into the kitchen. His words had broken her down; she was crying again.
"Isaac, I'd ha' put it back," she said, imploring. "I wor goin' in to Bedford to see Mr. Grimstone—'ee'd ha' managed it for me. I'd a' worked extra—I could ha' done it—if it 'adn't been for Timothy. If you'll 'elp—an' you'd oughter, for yer are my 'usband, whativer yer may say—we could pay John back—some day. Yo' can go to 'im, an' to Watson, an' say as we'll pay it back—yo' could, Isaac. I can take ter the plattin' again, an' I can go an' work for Mrs. Drew—she asked me again lasst week. Mary Anne 'ull see to the childer. Yo' go to John, Isaac, to-morrer—an'—an'—to Watson. All they wants is the money back. Yer couldn't—yer couldn't—see me took to prison, Isaac."
She gasped for breath, wiping the mist from her eyes with the edge of her shawl.
But all that she said only maddened the man's harsh and pessimist nature the more. The futility of her proposals, of her daring to think, after his fiat and the law's had gone forth, that there was any way out of what she had done, for her or for him, drove him to frenzy. And his wretched son was far away; so he must vent the frenzy on her. The melancholia, which religion had more or less restrained and comforted during a troubled lifetime, became, on this tragic night, a wild-beast impulse that must have its prey.