‘Oh, her . . .’ said Abner, with a laugh. ‘Don’t you put me off!’ she cried. ‘Don’t put me off! It’s not for me, it’s for his children. You see, I know, so you’d best tell me.’ ‘I can tell you one thing,’ he said. ‘George ain’t been with Susie Hind to-night.’ She clenched her hands furiously. ‘You’re only telling me lies . . . lies. How do you know? How do you know?’ ‘How do I know? I like that! I know because I’ve been with her myself.’ He thought it was a fine and brutal thing to say. With the same words he had rescued his friend from an awkward suspicion and proclaimed the thing that he had been wanting to shout to the stars on his way home. He had been burning to share his triumph with some one. George would have heard it if he hadn’t been so drunk. Now it was out; he had got it off his chest; he stood there smiling and triumphant, wondering what she could say next. ‘So you needn’t vex yourself about poor old George,’ he said. For a second she stared at him. The white anger died out of her face. She became suddenly red. Her clenched fingers opened and she clutched at the table. Then she gave a sudden, choking gasp, and spoke:— ‘You . . .’ she said, ‘you . . . ! Oh, I shouldn’t have thought it of you!’ ‘What’s up with you now?’ he said, good-humouredly. Her body was shaken with a fit of sobbing and she left him staring in the candlelight. The Thirteenth Chapter NEXT morning when Abner came downstairs in the dark he found George making himself a cup of tea in the kitchen. ‘That you, Abner?’ he said, turning his neck gingerly as though it hurt his head to speak. ‘God! It’s lifting the top of my skull off! This dose’ll last me for a bit. Mind you, I wasn’t so boozed I can’t remember what happened. I should have slept up against that old wall if you hadn’t come along. You’m a good pal, Abner.’ At this point his voice gave out. ‘Have a spot of tea?’ he said in a hoarse whisper. As usual they walked down the valley together at dawn. The fields lay hoary with rime, so that the light of dawn was like cloudy moonlight. Their heels crunched into the brittle ice of the wheel-ruts. Before them, on the white road, ran the wayward pattern of Spider’s dancing feet. Not a bird sang. The cold air gripped their temples. It was as though winter were closing on the world and those who dwelt in it like an iron vice. Dawn whitened beyond Castel Ditches: light without heat—light reflected from ice. But the steady walking thawed their limbs and George was soon asking in a husky voice for details of what had happened the night before. Something in Mary’s attitude when they woke that morning had struck him as unusual. He guessed that she had found a new grievance, and was anxious to know what she had said. He laughed when Abner told him that she had questioned him on the subject of Susie: laughed till the cold air choked him.