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“Yo’ll find yo’re dinner aw ready on th’ table,” she said to him as he passed in.

Everything was neat enough inside. The fireplace was clean and bright, the table was set tidily, and the meal upon it was good enough in its way; but when the man entered he cast an unsteady, uncomprehending glance around, and when he had flung himself into a chair he did not attempt to touch the food, but dropped his face upon his arm on the table with a sound like a little groan.

She must have heard it, but she did not notice it even by a turn of her head, but stood erect and steadfast until he spoke to her. She might have been waiting for his words–perhaps she was.

“Tha canst come in an’ say what tha has to say an’ be done wi’ it,” he said at last, in a sullen, worn-out fashion.

She turned round then and faced him, harder to be met in her rigid mood than if she had been a tempest.

“Tha knows what I ha’ getten to say,” she answered, her tone strained and husky with repressed fierceness. “Aye! tha knows it well enough. I ha’ not much need to tell thee owt. He comn here this morning an’ he towd me aw I want to know about thee, Seth Lonas–an’ more too.”

“He comn to me,” put in the man.

She advanced towards the table and struck it once with her hand.

“Tha’st towd me a power o’ lies,” she said. “Tha’s lied to me fro’ first to last to serve thy own eends, an’ tha’st gained ’em–tha’st lied me away fro’ th’ man as wur aw th’ world to me, but th’ time’s comn now when thy day’s o’er an’ his is comn agen. Ah! thou bitter villain! Does ta mind how tha comn an’ towd me Dan Morgan had gone to th’ fair at Lake wi’ that lass o’ Barnegats? That wur a lie an’ that wur th’ beginnin’. Does ta mind how tha towd me as he made light o’ me when th’ lads an’ lasses plagued him, an’ threeped ’em down as he didna mean to marry no such like lass as me–him as wur ready to dee fur me? That wur a lie an’ that wur th’ eendin’, as tha knew it would be, fur I spurned him fro’ me th’ very next day, an’ wouldna listen when he tried to straighten’ out. But he got at th’ truth at last when he wur fur fro’ here, an’ he browt th’ truth back to me to-day, an’ theer’s th’ eend fur thee–husband or no.”

The man, lay with his head upon his arms until she had finished, and then he looked up all white and shaken and blind.

“Wilt ta listen if I speak to thee?” he asked.

“Aye,” she answered, “listen to more lies!”

And she slipped down into a sitting posture on the stone door-step, and sat there, her great eyes staring out seaward, her hands lying loose upon her knee, and trembling.

There was something more in her mood than resentment. In this simple gesture she had broken down as she had never broken down in her life before. There was passionate grief in her face, a wild sort of despair, such as one might see in a suddenly-wounded, untamed creature. Hers was not a fair nature. I am not telling the story of a gentle, true-souled woman–I am simply relating the incidents of one bitter day whose tragic close was the ending of a rough romance.

Her life had been a long battle against the world’s scorn; she had been either on the offensive or the defensive from childhood to womanhood, and then she had caught one glimpse of light and warmth, clung to it yearningly for one brief hour, and lost it.

Only to-day she had learned that she had lost it through treachery. She had not dared to believe in her bliss, even during its fairest existence; and so, when light-hearted, handsome Dan Morgan’s rival had worked against him with false stories and false proofs, her fierce pride had caught at them, and her revenge had been swift and sharp. But it had fallen back upon her own head now. This very morning handsome Dan had come back again to Arle, and earned his revenge, too, though he had only meant to clear himself when he told her what chance had brought to light. He had come back–her lover, the man who had conquered and sweetened her bitter nature as nothing else on earth had power to do–he had come back and found her what she was–the wife of a man for whom she had never cared, the wife of the man who had played them both false, and robbed her of the one poor gleam of joy she had known. She had been hard and wild enough at first, but just now, when she slipped down upon the door-step with her back turned to the wretched man within–when it came upon her that, traitor as he was, she herself had given him the right to take her bright-faced lover’s place, and usurp his tender power–when the fresh sea-breeze blew upon her face and stirred her hair, and the warm, rare sunshine touched her, even breeze and sunshine helped her to the end, so that she broke down into a sharp sob, as any other woman might have done, only that the repressed strength of her poor warped nature made it a sob sharper and deeper than another woman’s would have been.