Esther slipped on her
night-dress and got into a large brass bedstead, without curtains. On the
chest of drawers Esther had placed the books her mother had given her, and
William had hung some sporting prints on the walls. He took his
night-shirt from the pillow and put it on without removing his pipe from
his mouth. He always finished his pipe in bed.
"It is revenge," he said, pulling the bed-clothes up to his chin, "because
I got you away from him."
"I don't think it is that; I did think so at first, and I said so."
"What did he say?"
"He said he was sorry I thought so badly of him; that he came to warn us
of our danger. If he had wanted to do us an injury he wouldn't have said
nothing about it. Don't you think so?"
"It seems reasonable. Then what do you think they're doing it for?"
"He says that keeping a betting-house is corruption in the neighbourhood."
"You think he thinks that?"
"I know he do; and there is many like him. I come of them that thinks like
that, so I know. Betting and drink is what my folk, the Brethren, holds as
most evil."
"But you've forgot all about them Brethren?"
"No, one never forgets what one's brought up in."
"But what do you think now?"
"I've never said nothing about it. I don't believe in a wife interfering
with her husband; and business was that bad, and your 'ealth 'asn't been
the same since them colds you caught standing about in them betting rings,
so I don't see how you could help it.
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