“You hear him, you hear him!” cried out the miller, now angry enough himself.  “That’s how I’m sarved for returnin’ gude to his evil.  I’ve treated un as no man else on God’s airth would have done; and this is what I gets.  He’s mad, an’ that’s to speak kind of the wretch!”

The young wife could only look helplessly from one to the other.  That morning had dawned very brightly for her.  A rumour of what was to happen reached her on rising, but the short-lived hope was quickly shattered, and though she had not seen him since their wedding-day, Phoebe was stung into bitterness against Will at this juncture.  She knew nothing of particulars, but saw him now pouring harsh reproaches on her father, and paying the miller’s unexampled generosity with hard and cruel words.  So she spoke to her husband.

“Oh, Will, Will, to say such things!  Do ’e love me no better ’n that?  To slight dear faither arter all he’s forgiven!”

“If you think I’m wrong, say it, Phoebe,” he answered shortly.  “If you’m against me, tu—­”

“‘Against you!’ How can you speak so?”

“No matter what I say.  Be you on his side or mine?  ’Cause I’ve a right to knaw.”

“Caan’t ’e see ’twas faither’s gert, braave, generous thought to give ’e work, an’ shaw a lesson of gudeness?  An’ then we meet again—­”

“Ess fay—­happy meetin’ for wife an’ husband, me up to the eyes in—­Theer, any fule can see ’twas done a purpose to shame me.”

“You’re a fule to say it!  ’Tis your silly pride’s gwaine to ruin all your life, an’ mine, tu.  Who’s to help you if you’ve allus got the black monkey on your shoulder like this here?”

“You’m a overbearin’, headstrong madman,” summed up the miller, still white with wrath; “an’ I’ve done with ’e now for all time.  You’ve had your chance an’ thrawed it away.”

“He put this on me because I was poor an’ without work.”

“He didn’t,” cried the girl, whose emotions for a moment took her clean from Will to her father.  “He never dreamed o’ doin’ any such thing.  He couldn’t insult a beggar-man; an’ you knaw it.  ’Tis all your ugly, wicked temper!”

“Then I’ll take myself off, an’ my temper, tu,” said Will, and prepared to do so; while Mr. Lyddon listened to husband and wife, and his last hope for the future dwindled and died, as he heard them quarrel with high voices.  His daughter clung to him and supported his action, though what it had been she did not know.

“Caan’t ‘e see you’re breakin’ faither’s heart all awver again just as ’twas mendin’?” she said.  “Caan’t ’e sing smaller, if ’tis awnly for thought of me?  Doan’t, for God’s love, fling away like this.”

“I met un man to man, an’ did his will with a gude thankful heart, an’ comed in the dawn to faace a job as—­”

“‘Tweren’t the job, an’ you knaw it,” broke in Mr. Lyddon.  “I wanted to prove ‘e an’ all your fine promises; an’ now I knaw their worth, an’ your worth.  An’ I curse the day ever my darter was born in the world, when I think she’m your wife, an’ no law can break it.”