"Take her upstairs," said the farmer to Rhoda, and Rhoda went by her and
took her hands, and by dint of pushing from behind and dragging in front,
Mrs. Sumfit, as near on a shriek as one so fat and sleek could be, was
ejected. The farmer and Robert heard her struggles and exclamations
along the passage, but her resistance subsided very suddenly.

"There's power in that girl," said the farmer, standing by the shut door.

Robert thought so, too. It affected his imagination, and his heart began
to beat sickeningly.

"Perhaps she promised to speak--what has happened, whatever that may be,"
he suggested.

"Not she; not she. She respects my wishes."

Robert did not ask what had happened.

Mr. Fleming remained by the door, and shut his mouth from a further word
till he heard Rhoda's returning footstep. He closed the door again
behind her, and went up to the square deal table, leaned his body forward
on the knuckles of his trembling fist, and said, "We're pretty well
broken up, as it is. I've lost my taste for life."

There he paused. Save by the shining of a wet forehead, his face
betrayed nothing of the anguish he suffered. He looked at neither of
them, but sent his gaze straight away under labouring brows to an arm of
the fireside chair, while his shoulders drooped on the wavering support
of his hard-shut hands. Rhoda's eyes, ox-like, as were her father's,