more?

"It was Mr. Meldon told me," said Sabina, "and how was I to know but
you sent a message to me by him, the way I'd be doing what it was you
wanted done?"

"Is it likely I'd send him to you on a message? Oughtn't you to have
more sense than to think I'd trust that one with a message? And
wouldn't anybody that wasn't a born fool know that I didn't want the
lamp upset over the dinner?"

"It was you told me to put the stuff the doctor was after giving you on
the sheets of the gentleman's bed, and after the like of that was done
on him, it wouldn't make much matter what other devilment he'd have to
put up with. Sure there's nothing in the world worse on a man than a
damp bed, and me after airing them sheets at the kitchen fire for the
best part of the morning, so as no one would have it to say that they
wasn't dry. If you didn't want him hunted out of the house, why did
you bid me do that?"

Doyle felt the force of the argument; felt it more acutely than Sabina
could guess. He himself, at the bidding of Meldon, had done much to
make an honoured and profitable guest uncomfortable. Could he fairly
blame Sabina for acting in a similar way with precisely the same
excuse? He felt the necessity for speaking very sternly.

"Will you get out of this?" he said, "for I'm in dread but I might
raise my hand to you if you stand there talking to me any more. You'd
provoke the patience of a saint; but I wouldn't like to have it cast up
to me after that ever I struck you."

"I'm going. You needn't think I'm wanting to stay. There's plenty
will be glad to get me, and pay me more wages than ever you done."

Doyle recognised the truth of this. He had got Sabina cheap--cheap
even by the standard of wages which prevails in Connacht. He felt half
inclined to reconsider his determination. The judge was gone. The
dismissal of Sabina, though a pleasant and satisfying form of
vengeance, would not bring the lost three pounds back again; while
there might be a good deal of trouble in getting another cook.

"Before I go," said Sabina, who did not want to go, and was watching
Doyle's face for signs of relenting, "before I go I've a message to
give you from Mr. Meldon."

"I seen him myself this morning," said Doyle, "and I don't know what
there could be in the way of a message for me that he wouldn't have
told me himself."

"What he bid me tell you was this--" Sabina paused. "Well now," she
said, "if I haven't gone and f