"How can I say that? I wasn't there: _nobody saw her fall_; nor _heard her either_; and the house full of people. No doubt there is something the matter with her; but I do believe her heart is in more trouble than her back." "And what troubles her heart? Tell me, and she shall not fret long." "Well, sir; then just you send for Father Leonard; and she will get up, and walk as she used, and smile on you as she used. That man is the main of her sickness, you take my word." Griffith turned sick at heart; and the strong man literally staggered at this envenomed thrust of a weak woman's tongue. But he struggled with the poison. "What d' ye mean, woman?" said he. "The priest hasn't been near her these two months." "That is it, sir," replied Ryder quietly; "_he_ is too wise to come here against your will; and _she_ is bitter against you for frightening him away. Ask yourself, sir, didn't she change to you the moment that you threatened that Leonard with the horse-pond?" "That is true!" gasped the wretched husband. Yet he struggled again. "But she made it up with me after that. Why, 't was but the other day she begged me to go abroad with her, and take her away from this place." "Ay? indeed!" said Ryder, bending her black brows, "did she so?" "That she did," said Griffith joyfully; "so you see you are mistaken." "You should have taken her at her word, sir," was all the woman's reply. "Well, you see the hay was out; so I put it off; and then came the cursed rain, day after day; and so she cooled upon it." "Of course she did, sir." Then, with a solemnity that appalled her miserable listener, "I'd give all I'm worth if you had taken her at her word that minute. But that is the way with you gentlemen; you let the occasion slip; and we that be women never forgive that: she won't give you the same chance again, _I_ know. Now if I was not afraid to make you unhappy, I'd tell you why she asked you to go abroad. She felt herself weak and saw her danger; she found she could not resist that Leonard any longer; and she had the sense to see it wasn't worth her while to ruin herself for him; so she asked you to save her from him: that is the plain English. And you didn't." At this, Griffith's face wore an expression of agony so horrible that Ryder hesitated in her course. "There, there," said she, "pray don't look so, dear master! after all, there's nothing certain; and perhaps I am too severe where I see you ill-treated: and to be sure no woman could be cold to _you_ unless she was bewitched out of her seven senses by some other man. I couldn't use you as mistress does; but then there's nobody I care a straw for in these parts, except my dear master." Griffith took no notice of this overture: the potent poison of jealousy was coursing through all his veins and distorting his ghastly face.