"’Tisn’t all, as it happens. I’m going to talk of Bartley Crocker now, and then you can take away something to think about yourself, you frozen wretch! I suppose, in your pride, you fancy he’s after you all these days, and comes because he wants to marry you--wants to marry a lump of granite! ’Tisn’t you he thinks about, or cares about, or ever will; ’tis one whose shoes you ban’t worthy to black--or David either. Between you she’d be like to die of starvation, I reckon; and who shall blame her if she does take her hungry heart to somebody, else? You and him--good God! ’tis like living between two ice images--enough to kill the nature in any creature higher than a dog. And she knows it, and a good few more--Bartley Crocker among the number--knows it. Belike Madge grows tired of being moss to his stone, and working her fingers raw for such as you and her husband. And even your precious David ban’t the only man in the world. And so a decent chap like Bartley comes along, an old friend that knows a little about girls and what they feel like, and knows they be different from sheep and heifers. Hear that! ’Tis not for you the man seeks your house. He uses your name like a blind. He laughs at you and your airs and graces. He’s got no use for you and never will have. They meet here and there and everywhere--and why not? ’Fallen woman’ be the word for me, I suppose. ’Tis you be the fallen woman; and to call you woman is too good for you! You never was a woman; but Madge is, and I hope to God you’ll wake one day to find she’ve had pluck and sense enough to leave you and David and run for it with a better man. You may stare your owl’s eyes out of your head. But you’ve got it now, and you’ve earned it." Dorcas stopped, panting from her tirade, and passed her sister and disappeared without more speech. Rhoda, left alone, stood quite still for a little while; then she proceeded on her business. Not a shadow of anger clouded her mind, only dreadful dismay at the things she had heard. She was not galled for herself; she did not wince at the foul torrent loosed upon her. It passed over her harmlessly. But her thoughts busied themselves entirely with David. That Dorcas should thus have supported her own fears, and driven home her own cloudy suspicions and terrors, struck Rhoda dumb. Here was the thing that she had hidden and suffered to gnaw her breast without a sign, now shouted on the loud, vulgar tongue of the world, as represented by Dorcas. Here was the secret that she had suspected, and searched out in fear and trembling, blurted coarsely for any ear.