"Can’t leave you like this--must understand what you’re driving at," he declared. "Then I’ll go," she said. "What do you take me for? Have you sunk so low that you don’t know a clean-minded creature when you meet one? I’m not a fool, and I am not blind; and I’ve seen too well what’s been doing of late; therefore I warn you to be gone afore the storm is let loose on you." "No fear of missing the storm while you’re about. And off I shall be ere long now. There’s nothing more to keep me, since you’ve gone out of your wits. All the same, I believe you’ve thrust yourself under the law for such talk as this. To tell me I’m going wrong with a married woman! Damn it all, Rhoda, what nasty thoughts have crept into your head? Why don’t you name her and have done with it? ’Tis bad enough to know you hate me; but hear this: May the Almighty find and finish me where I sit if--" "Don’t!" she cried out. "Don’t take His name here and belike leave your stricken dust rooted in that chair for me to watch till others come! I’ll hear no oath and I’ll name no names. I know you--I’ve seen it--I’ve heard it--heard it from another as quick to do evil as ever you was." "By God, this is too bad!" he cried, leaping up. "You--you to accuse me of loose conduct and wrong-doing! Look to your eyes that have seen what never happened; and your ears that have listened to lies; and your tongue too--your tongue that can talk thus to a man who loved you truly and uprightly and has kept as straight as yourself from the day he loved you and longed for you! You can’t love me and I don’t blame you there. You can’t love me; but is that a just reason why you should lie about me? See to yourself, Rhoda, and you’ll find a bitter weed in your own heart that’s better out and away. And threaten no more neither. You may drag me as deep as you please through the dirt that’s got into your mind--God help you; but don’t drag some innocent woman through it. Anyway, you’ll never see my face again--spy as you may--for I shall be gone for good in a month or two." She did not answer and he abruptly left her. He was very angry, very startled, and very shocked that she could believe and repeat such a monstrous error. He cast about for some ground in reason, and examined his life. He could only think of the meetings with Margaret Bowden; but that these were actually what Rhoda referred to did not even occur to him. He had, as a matter of fact, travelled recently as far as Plymouth with a woman, but she was Rhoda’s own widowed sister from Ditsworthy, and it seemed impossible that she could refer to her.