I ain't blind, and I'll tell him so as soon as I look
at him. Here, hi! Jane!"

Mr Gurdon's legs had conveyed him, as he went on muttering, as far as
the housekeeper's room, when, seeing the flutter of a garment just
turning a corner at the end of the passage, he called out, and Jane
Barker, rather red of eye, turned round and confronted him.

"Here, come in here, Jenny, I want to talk to you," he said, catching
her by the hand, when, without a word, she followed him into the
housekeeper's room, and he closed the door.

"I knew he hadn't," said Jane, who had been watching him from a
distance, and had seen him enter and leave the library, "you wouldn't
have looked cross like that, John, if he had."

"He don't dare!" said Gurdon, insolently. "It's all smoke, and he knows
now that I'm not blind. Discharge me, indeed! I'll discharge myself,
and have something for holding my tongue into the bargain! Don't tell
me: I can read him like a book, and his pride will humble itself before
me like a schoolboy's. Now, look here, Jenny: there's been enough
nonsense now. We've been courting years enough, and you've saved up a
bit of money. Let's go at once. I've saved nothing; but I've had my
eyes open, and if I don't leave the Castle a hundred pounds in pocket
it's a strange thing to me. I'm sick of it, I am; and I know of a
decent public-house to let over at Blankesley, where the iron-pits are.
There'll be no end of trade to it, so let's get married and take it.
Now, what do you say?"

"Say?" exclaimed Jane Barker, whose face had been working, while her
lips were nipped together, and her arms crossed over her breast, as if
to keep down her emotion--"say? Why, that sooner than marry you, and
have my little bit of money put in a public-house, for you to be pouring
it down your throat all day, I'd go into the union! I'll own that I
did, and I have, loved you very, very much; but you've half broke my
heart with seeing you, day after day, getting into such sotting ways.
You know you wouldn't have been here now if it hadn't been for me going
down on my knees to my own dear, sweet lady, to ask her not to complain,
when you've gone up to her, time after time, not fit to be seen, and
smelling that horrid that tap-rooms was flower-gardens compared to you!
And now, after all her kindness and consideration, you talk like that!
I'm ashamed of you--I'm ashamed of you!"

And Jane burst into tears.

"Now, don't be a fool, Jenny!