"Don't let none interrupt me." His hand was raised as toward where Rhoda
stood, but he sent no look with it; the direction was wide of her.

The aspect of the blank blind hand motioning to the wall away from her,
smote an awe through her soul that kept her dumb, though his next words
were like thrusts of a dagger in her side.

"My first girl--she's brought disgrace on this house. She's got a mother
in heaven, and that mother's got to blush for her. My first girl's gone
to harlotry in London."

It was Scriptural severity of speech. Robert glanced quick with intense
commiseration at Rhoda. He saw her hands travel upward till they fixed
in at her temples with crossed fingers, making the pressure of an iron
band for her head, while her lips parted, and her teeth, and cheeks, and
eyeballs were all of one whiteness. Her tragic, even, in and out
breathing, where there was no fall of the breast, but the air was taken
and given, as it were the square blade of a sharp-edged sword, was
dreadful to see. She had the look of a risen corpse, recalling some one
of the bloody ends of life.

The farmer went on,--

"Bury her! Now you here know the worst. There's my second girl. She's
got no stain on her; if people 'll take her for what she is herself.
She's idle. But I believe the flesh on her bones she'd wear away for any
one that touched her heart. She's a temper. But she's clean both in body
and in spirit, as I believe, and say before my God. I--what I'd pray for
is, to see this girl safe. All I have shall go to her. That is, to the