"You made a poor bargain," she remarked.
"Aye, a poor bargain; but you were one in it. You bore it in your mind, and you've bore it there from then till now, and I've got a hold on you through it that's worth summat to me, if I never came nigh nor touched you. You knew it, and you let it be. No other chap can pay more for you than Jem Haworth's paid. I've got that to think of."
She made a gesture with her hand.
"I—I—hush!" she cried. "I will not hear it!"
"Stop it, if you can. Call 'em if you want, and let 'em hear—th' new chap and all. You shall hear, if all Broxton comes. I've paid twenty-five year of work and sweat and grime; I've paid 'Haworth's'—for I'm a ruined chap as I stand here; and but for you I'd have got through."
There was a shock in these last words; if they were true the blow would fall on her too.
"What," she faltered,—"what do you mean?"
"Th' strikes begun it," he answered, laconically, "and," with a jerk of his thumb toward the room in which her father sat, "he finished it. He tried some of his gentleman pranks in a quiet way, and he lost money on 'em. He's lost it again and again, and tried to cover it with fresh shifts, and it's 'Haworth's' that must pay for 'em. It'll come sooner or later, and you may make up your mind to it."
"What were you doing?" she demanded, sharply. "You might have known——"
"Aye," he returned, "what was I doing? I used to be a sharp chap enow. I've not been as sharp i' th' last twelvemonth, and he was up to it. He thought it was his own brass, likely—he'd give summat for it as belonged to him."
