And though the wife did not believe a word, curiosity prompted her to look, and there she saw the girl bowing herself out with as many thanks and adieus as if the poor man had really given her the things she had bought.
‘Perhaps you will believe that!’ observed the bad old woman.
‘Indeed, I cannot help believing it,’ answered the wife, ‘but never otherwise should I have thought it; and I owe you a great deal for opening my eyes;’ and she gave her a whole cheese.[4] ‘I know what I shall do,’ she continued, as she sobbed over her lost peace of mind; ‘I shall show him I know his bad conduct by having no dinner ready for him when he comes up by-and-by.’
‘That’s right,’ said the bad old woman. ‘Do so, and show him you are not going to be trampled on for the sake of a drab of a girl like that;’ and she tied her cheese up in a handkerchief, and went her way.
Down she went now to the husband, and plied him with suspicions of his wife, similar to those she had suggested to her against him. The husband was even less willing to listen to her than the wife had been, and when at last he drove her away, she said:
‘You think she’s busy all the morning preparing your dinner; but instead of that, she’s talking to those you wouldn’t like her to talk with. And you see now if to-day she hasn’t been at this game so long that she has forgotten your dinner altogether.’
The husband turned a deaf ear, and continued attending to his shop; but when he went into the house and found no dinner ready, it seemed as if all that the bad old woman had said was come true.
He was too sad for words, so they didn’t have much of a quarrel, but there could not but be a coldness after such an extraordinary event as a day without dinner.
The husband went back to his shop and mused. The wife sat alone in her room crying; presently the old hag came back to her.
‘Well, did you tell him you had found him out?’ she inquired.