"It may cause you great unpleasantness." He went ahead and Nathaniel followed him, assured that the old man's words and the way in which he had spoken them no longer left a doubt as to the identity of his night visitor.

She was one of the councilor's wives, so he thought, and his own interest in her was beginning to have an irritating effect.

In other words Obadiah was becoming jealous.
For some time there was silence between the two.

Obadiah Price now walked with extreme slowness and along paths which seemed to bring him no nearer to the town below.

Nathaniel could see that he was absorbed in thoughts of his own, and held his peace.