Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/345

Rh "I will not—that wretch—beat me? Why did He not send lightning and strike him dead?"

"I cannot tell you, darling. We must wait and trust."

"I am tired of waiting and trusting. If I had a gun I would not shoot birds, I would go behind a hedge and shoot Captain Coppinger. There would be nothing wrong in that, Ju?"

"Yes there would. It would be a sin."

"Not after he did that to Oliver."

"I would never&mdash;never love you, if you did that."

"You would always love me whatever I did," said Jamie. He spoke the truth, Judith knew it. Her eyes filled, she drew the boy to her passionately and kissed his golden head.

Then came Aunt Dionysia and summoned her into her own room. Jamie followed.

"Judith," began Aunt Dunes, in her usual hard tones, and with the same frozen face, "I wish you particularly to understand. Look here! You have caused me annoyance enough while I have been here. Now I shall have a house of my own at S. Austell, and if I chose to live in it I can. If I do not, I can let it, and live at Othello Cottage. I have not made up my mind what to do. Fifteen hundred pounds is a dirty little sum, and not half as much as ought to have been left me for all I had to bear from that old woman. I am glad for one thing that she has left me something, though not much. I should have despaired of her salvation had she not. However her heart was touched at the last, though not touched enough. Now what I want you to understand is this—it entirely depends on your conduct whether after my death this sum of fifteen hundred pounds and a beggarly sum of about five hundred I have of my own, comes to you or not. As long as this nonsense goes on between you and Captain Coppinger—you pretending you are not married, when you are, there is no security for me that you and Jamie may not come tumbling in upon me and become a burden to me. Captain Coppinger will not endure this fooling much longer. He can take advantage of your mistake. He can say—I am not married. Where is the evidence? Produce proof of the marriage having been solemnized—and then he may send you out of his house upon the downs in the cold. What would you be then, eh? All the world