“What do I know well?” he asked, “I never meddle with your debts.”
“At least,” she said, “you know very well that I must pay the tithe.”
“What tithe?”
“Marry!” she replied. “It always has to be paid;—the tithe for our nights together. You are lucky—I have to pay for us both.”
“And to whom do you pay?” he asked.
“To brother Eustace,” she replied. “You go on home, and let me go in and discharge my debt. It is a great sin not to pay, and I am never at ease in my mind when I owe him anything.”
“It is too late to-night,” said he, “he has gone to bed an hour ago.”
“By my oath,” said she, “I have been this year later than this. If one wants to pay one can go in at any hour.”
“Come along! come along!” he said. “One night makes no such great matter.”
So they returned home; both husband and wife vexed and displeased—the wife because she was not allowed to pay her tithe, and the husband because he had learned how he had been deceived, and was filled with anger and thoughts of vengeance, rendered doubly bitter by the fact that he did not dare to show his anger.