His little eyes gazed at her with long-suffering malice.
"You are my wife," he answered pregnantly, as who would say: Thus is my folly clearly proven! and seeing that the assertion was not one that admitted of dispute, Mistress Quinn was silent.
"Oh, 'tis ill done!" he broke out a moment later.

"Shame on me for it; it is ill done!" "If you have done it 'tis sure to be ill done, and shame on you in good sooth--but for what ?" put in his wife.
"For sending those poor jaded beasts upon the road." "What beasts ?" "What beasts?
Do I keep turtles?
My horses, woman." "And whither have you sent them ?" "To Denham with the baggage that came hither this morning in the company of that very fierce gentleman who was in such a pet because we had no horses." "Where is he ?" inquired the hostess.
"At dice with those other gallants from town." "At dice quotha?
And she's gone, you say ?" asked Mrs.Quinn, pausing in her labours squarely to face her husband.
"Aye," said he.
"Stupid!" rejoined his docile spouse, vexed by his laconic assent.

"Do you mean she has run away ?" "Tis what anyone might take from what I have told you," he answered sweetly.
"And you have lent her horses and helped her to get away, and you leave her husband at play in there ?" "You have seen her marriage lines, I make no doubt," he sneered irrelevantly.
"You dolt! If the gentleman horsewhips you, you will have richly earned it." "Eh?
What ?" gasped he, and his rubicund cheeks lost something of their high colour, for here was a possibility that had not entered into his calculations.

But Mistress Quinn stayed not to answer him.

Already she was making for the door, wiping the dough from her hands on to her apron as she went.