'What! ye have dared to come back alive, hussy, to look upon the
dupery you have practised on honest people! You've mortified us all;
I don't want to see 'ee; I don't want to hear 'ee; I don't want to
know anything!' He walked up and down the room, unable to command
himself. 'Nothing but being dead could have excused 'ee for not
meeting and marrying that man this morning; and yet you have the
brazen impudence to stand there as well as ever! What be you here
for?'

'I've come back to marry Jim, if he wants me to,' she said faintly.
'And if not--perhaps so much the better. I was sent for this morning
early. I thought--.' She halted. To say that she had thought a
man's death might happen by his own hand if she did not go to him,
would never do. 'I was obliged to go,' she said. 'I had given my
word.'

'Why didn't you tell us then, so that the wedding could be put off,
without making fools o' us?'

'Because I was afraid you wouldn't let me go, and I had made up my
mind to go.'

'To go where?'

She was silent; till she said, 'I will tell Jim all, and why it was;
and if he's any friend of mine he'll excuse me.'

'Not Jim--he's no such fool. Jim had put all ready for you, Jim had
called at your house, a-dressed up in his new wedding clothes, and a-