Pasco’s face grew more sullen, and his demeanour dogged to defiance. He could not look his wife in the face, he kept his eyes on the ground, and with his boot scratched the floor in fantastic figures.
“I can see all that passes in your heart,” pursued Zerah. “It’s like as if I were outside a window, and see’d shadows on the blind as this and that went by and this and that rose up or sat down. Now the folk begin to talk and to suspect you, and say how that you insured for a big sum, and when the goods weren’t paid for, burnt ’em all to secure the insurance; then you try and throw the suspicion off on to Kitty or Jason, or both together. It is like you, you black coward. But it shall not be. I will stand betwixt you and Kitty, and no harm from you shall hurt her. What I and Kitty want to know is’What has become of Jason? Where is he? If you will not answer, we will work out the answer for our own selves’she with the heable (fork), I with the phisgie (pick). We have strong arms, and we will ourselves root about in the ruins, till we learn something to satisfy our minds.”
“I don’t know how you’ve the face to talk to me like this, Zerah,” said Pasco surlily. “I’ve come into something like four thousand pounds through my uncle, and there’ll be another thousand and more from the insurance. On five thousand pounds’Lord! I’m a Christian and a gentleman.”
“Bank-notes won’t plaster sore consciences,” retorted Zerah. “You think money is everything, and no matter how it be come by. So it has ever been with you.”
“Am I like to be a villain,” queried Pasco in exasperation, “when I knew my uncle was worth a pot o’ coin that was sure to come to me?”
“You did not know he was dead.”
“I knew he was sickening and worn out. A man of means don’t do criminal acts; that’s the perquisite of beggars and labouring men.”
“I do not ask for excuses and evasions. I ask’where is my brother?” persisted Zerah.
At that moment the door was thrown open, a hand was thrust in, waving a paper, and a voice shouted’
“There you be, Pasco Pepperill. I’ve got my warranty. I said I would, and I’m the man o’ my word. I went full gallop up to Squire Carew. None can stand agin me.”