“Well, and now?”
“And now they’ve gone and done the same’or worse. Before it was my old boat, and now it’s the new one’cut the rope, and away she’s gone. It’s wickedness. Oh my! You should preach and pray against it. There be such a lot of it in the world’and cost me six guineas did that boat.”
“I am very sorry to hear of this additional loss,” said the rector.
“I suppose the next thing they will say is, I cut my own boat away and let her go out to sea, because I had insured her. But you may tell everyone, pass’n, that I hadn’t insured my boat no more than I had my rick o’ straw. Oh dear! the wickedness there is in the world!”
“I wish to see your wife for a moment.”
“Zerah’s inside, in a fine take-on. She’s gone about like a weathercock lately, and can’t make enough of Kitty. And now that Kitty is proved to ha’ done all these horrible crimes, she’s in a bad way, I can assure you.”
The rector entered the house and found the poor woman. Her former hardness had given way under the troubles she had undergone; her pride had been broken down beneath the burden of the knowledge that her husband had been guilty of setting fire to his stores for the sake of the insurance money, and of the gnawing suspicion that her brother had died in the flames; that he had been remorselessly sacrificed by Pasco to conceal his own guilt. And now that this new conflagration had occurred, and that Kitty was apparently implicated in it, she was nigh in despair.
“Mrs. Pepperill,” said the rector, “I have come to you after having dismissed Kitty to rest.”
“Rest?” echoed Zerah. “Can she sleep? That is more than I can.”
“Yes; so also will you when you have taken the same prescription.”