She gazed at him with open-eyed amazement. The boy whom she had thought of as a poor thing became instead a sneering raging fury. Completely beyond self-control, he turned upon her.
"You and your snivelling mother, coming down and weeping piety and her daughter's honour; and your bullying rip of a father, damn him! I bet you're all the same. You know jolly well what this all means. 'What about another room at the Scarshaven Hotel,' eh? And then she comes whining and sobbing to me and saying I must marry her because I've ruined her life! She and her honour. How do I know how many more Erics she's fooled on with? Blast her! Curse her!"
His weak face was distorted by rage. The candlelight danced on the red rims of his swollen eyes and on his trembling hand upraised as if he would strike Muriel.
She still sat on the edge of the bed, quite quietly. Her mind refused to register any thought but the name of her sister, Connie, Connie, repeated again and again without significance.
Ben dropped his hand. "She taunted me. She said I was no man. She pretended that she knew nowt o' this sort o' thing. She told me that she'd carried on with other fellows, just a bit, just playing like. And there was I, cursing myself because I'd done it. Calling myself a black sinner when I had no call to marry her, not even a farm o' my own yet, and all the time she was just laughing at me, fooling me. And I've been feeling myself under a heavy burden o' sin, with my guilt an' hers upon me, an' not daring to go round to chapel, and feeling the hand o' the Lord upraised against me. She led me on. She led me on. Let her drown now. Let her drown. I reckon she'll not swim long i' Fallow, and her burden o' guilt will weigh her down."
Muriel stared at him. "Ben. You've lost your head. It mayn't mean all that. She's your wife."
"She betrayed me. She betrayed me." He dropped his face into his hands and sat with quivering shoulders on the bed by Muriel's side. "She's shamed me. And I meant to prove myself a man." He began to sob, bitter grinding sobs that tore him with grief for his shamed manhood. "Ah never had a wife. Ah never had one. She fooled me. Ah've been fooled all my life. Ah've been fooled by God an' fooled by her. There's no faith left."
"Ben. Pull yourself together. You've got no right to accuse her till you know. When did she go? Are you sure she left the house? Which way would she take?"
He raised his haggard face and jeered at her. "Go an' find her. You're scared o' the dark, aren't you? Go an' find her corpse knocking about i' Fallow like an old sow drowned last Martinmas. Go on. Get out o' way." His voice rose to the shrill note of hysteria. "Get out o' here! This is my room. What are you doing in my room—you——"
He called her a name that she had never heard before. She turned to run, and saw him towering above her, fantastic in the candlelight. As she ran, she heard his voice behind her, calling, "Run, Muriel! Run! It's nice and cold in t'river."