“Yes, because you returned to the Cellars after you had got to the head of the hill.”
“Who said that? It is a lie!”
“Kitty, I understand, said as much to John Pooke.”
“Kitty said it?”
“Kitty told Jan and Rose as she was being driven home from the moor’so I have been informed.”
“It’s a lie!” roared Pasco, glaring round at the girl with a curl up of his thick lips, showing his teeth like a dog about to bite. “It’s a ’–– lie!”
“Mr. Pepperill!” said the rector, rising in dignified anger from the seat that had been accorded him, “I will not suffer you to use such an expression in my presence, even in your own house. You do not add one jot to the force of your repudiation’to your charge against Kate’by burdening it with an oath.”
“It’s like that beggarly schoolmaster’s impudence to come poking his snout here, where he’s not wanted, where”’with some energy’“I won’t have him! I’ll have the law of him for trespass!”
“He did not trespass. It is free to anyone to approach a house door.”
“I don’t care; I’ll shoot him if he shows his face here again.”