"When I give up what I'd worked twenty year to get, what did I give it up for? For _you_. When I took Ffrench in partner, what did I run the risk for? For _you_. What was to pay me? _You._" His close presence in the shadow was so intolerable to her that she could have cried out, but she did not. "You made a poor bargain," she remarked. "Aye, a poor bargain; but you were one in it. You bore it in your mind, and you've bore it there from then till now, and I've got a hold on you through it that's worth summat to me, if I never came nigh nor touched you. You knew it, and you let it be. No other chap can pay more for you than Jem Haworth's paid. I've got that to think of." She made a gesture with her hand. "I--I--hush!" she cried. "I will not hear it!" "Stop it, if you can. Call 'em if you want, and let 'em hear--th' new chap and all. You shall hear, if all Broxton comes. I've paid twenty-five year of work and sweat and grime; I've paid 'Haworth's'--for I'm a ruined chap as I stand here; and but for _you_ I'd have got through." There was a shock in these last words; if they were true the blow would fall on her too. "What," she faltered,--"what do you mean?" "Th' strikes begun it," he answered, laconically, "and," with a jerk of his thumb toward the room in which her father sat, "he finished it. He tried some of his gentleman pranks in a quiet way, and he lost money on 'em. He's lost it again and again, and tried to cover it with fresh shifts, and it's 'Haworth's' that must pay for 'em. It'll come sooner or later, and you may make up your mind to it." "What were you doing?" she demanded, sharply. "You might have known----" "Aye," he returned, "what was I doing? I used to be a sharp chap enow. I've not been as sharp i' th' last twelvemonth, and he was up to it. He thought it was his own brass, likely--he'd give summat for it as belonged to him." He came nearer to the light and eyed her over. "You've had your day," he said. "You've made a worse chap of me than I need have been. You--you lost me a friend; I hadn't counted that in. You've done worse by him than you've done by me. He was th' finer mak' of th' two, and it'll go harder with him. When I came in, he was hanging about the road-side, looking up at the house. He didn't see me, but I saw him. He'll be there many a night, I dare say. I'd be ready to swear he's there now." "Whom do you mean?" "I mean--Murdoch!" The very sound of his own voice seemed to fire him with rage. She saw a look in his eye which caused her to shrink back. But she was too late. He caught her by the arm and dragged her toward him. A second later when he released her, she staggered to one of the rustic seats and sank crouching into it, hiding her face in the folds of her dress. She had not cried out, however, nor uttered a sound, and he had known she would not. He stood looking down at her.