he keyhole.

"Now," he said. "It lies in a nutshell. My Mary was tokened in a sort of
childish way to a man called Nathan Coaker--a horse-stealer or little
better, and a devil of a rogue, anyway. But it seems you looked in your
bit of glass and pretended to see--"

"Stop!" cried Charity, putting on her grand manner and making her eyes
flash like forked lightning at the man. "How do you dare to talk about
'pretending' to me? Begone, you wretched creature! I'll neither list to
you, nor help you now. Go to your death--and a good riddance. You to talk
about 'pretending' to me!"

He caved in at that, and grumbled and growled, but she'd hear nought more
from him till he'd said he was sorry, and that so humbly as he knowed how.

"Now you can go on again," she said, "but be civil, or I'll not lift a
finger to aid you."

"'Tis like this," he went on. "It do look as if that man, Nathan Coaker,
was coming back."

"That's so. I never seed the fellow myself, but his name certainly was
Nathan Coaker, and Mary called him home in a minute from my picture in the
crystal. They was certainly tokened, and if she's forgot it, he haven't;
and such is the report I hear of him, that 'tis sure he'll overmaster such
a man as you by force of arms. No woman can resist him. I guess he's made
his fortune and be coming in triumph to marry her."

"She's going to marry me, however."

"So you think."

The man began to grow more and more cowed afore her cold, steady eyes, and
the scorn in her voice.

"The strongest will win," he said.

"Yes," she answered him, "that's true without a doubt--so the cards
showed."

"And what's stronger than money?" he axed.

"A man in a righteous rage," she replied; "and a charge of heavy shot with
gunpowder behind 'em."

"Lord save us! You don't mean he'd lie in a hedge for me?"

"He'd do anything where his own promised woman was concerned," she said.
"But 'tis more likely, from what I hear, that he'd meet you face to face
in the open street, and hammer you to death for coming between him and
her."

"She's my side."

"Now she may be, but wait till she sets eyes on him again. He's well
knowed to be so handsome as Apollyon."

Peter Hacker got singing smaller and smaller then.

"'Tis a thousand pities the wretched fellow can't be kept away."

"For your sake it is, without a doubt--a thousand pities," admitted
Charity. "She loves you very well, and a good wife she'll make--and a
thrifty--but she won'