“I don’t know.”
“Nor I!” he answered. He shrugged his shoulders in disgust at her folly. To him, in his selfish fear, it seemed incredible folly.
“But you talked with her?”
“Not a word.”
“I say,” Bess repeated with a furious look, “you did! You talked with her! I know you did!”
“Have your own way, then,” he answered despairingly, “though may heaven strike me dead if there was a word! But she’ll he talking soon—and they’ll be here. And she”—with a quavering, passionate rise in his voice—“she’ll hang me!”
“She’d best not!” the girl replied, with a gleam of sharp teeth. “I hate her as it is. I hate her now! I’d like to kill her! But then——”
“Then?” he retorted, his anger rising as hers sank. “What is the use of then? It’s now is the point! Curse You! while you are talking about hating her, and what you’ll do, I’ll be taken! They’ll be here and I’ll hang!”
“Steady, steady, lad,” she said. The fear had flown from his face to hers. “Perhaps she’ll not tell.”
“Why not? Why’ll she not tell?”