'and may the Lord--'

I think my mother put her hands afore his mouth, for he stopped
short, and mother, she said--

'Don't curse them, James. You'll be sorry for it, and they'll have
trouble enough without that.'

And with that father and mother must have gone away, and the other
ringers stood talking a bit.

'She'd best not come back,' said the leader, John Evans. 'Out
a-gallivanting with a young chap from five to eight as I understand!
What's the good of coming back? She's lost her character, and a gal
without a character, she's like--like--'

'Like a public-house without a licence,' said the second ringer.

'Or a cart without a horse,' said the treble.

There was only one man spoke up for me--that was Jim Piper at the
general shop. 'I don't believe no harm of that gal,' says he, 'no
more nor I would of my own missus, nor yet of him.'

'Well, let's hope for the best,' said the others. But I had a sort
of feeling they was hoping for the worst, because when things goes
wrong, it's always more amusing for the lookers-on than when
everything goes right. Presently they went clattering down the
steps, and all was dark, and there was me and William among the
cobwebs and the owls, holding each other's hands, and as cold as
stone, both of us.

'Well?' says William, when everything was quiet again.

'Well!' says I. 'Good-bye, William. He won't be as hard as his word,
and if I couldn't give you all my life to be a good wife to you, I
have given you my character, it seems; not willing, it's true; but
there's nothing I should grudge you, William, and I don't regret it,
and good-bye.'

But he held my hands tight.

'Good-bye, William,' I says again. 'I'm going. I'm going home.'

'Yes, my girl,' says he, 'you are going home; you're going home with
me to my mother.' And he was masterful enough then, I can tell you.
'If your father would throw you off without knowing the rights or
wrongs of the story, it's not for him you should be giving up your
happiness and mine, my girl. Come home to my mother, and let me see
the man who dares to say anything against my wife.'

And whether it was father's being so hard and saying what he did
about me before all those men, or whether it was me knowing that
mother had stood up for us secret all the time, or whether it was
because I loved William so much, or because he loved me so much, I
don't know. But I didn't say another word, only began to cry, and we
got downstairs and straig