He gave her the promise in sheer pity, but regretted it as soon as made. He had set his heart on a journey in search of the world that gave no sign, planning to undertake it before the days grew shorter; but he did not disguise from himself that there might still be danger in the expedition—which Ada’s hampering presence would increase. The project was abandoned for the time being, in the hope that she would see reason later; but he regretted his promise and weakness the more when he found that Ada did not trust to his word and, fearing lest he gave her the slip, now clung to him as closely as his shadow. Her suspicion and stupidity annoyed him; and there were times when he was ashamed of his own irritation when he saw her trotting, like a dog, at his heels or squatting within eyeshot of his movements. He was conscious of a longing to slap her silly face, and more than once he spoke sharply to her, urged her to go home; whereupon she sulked or cried, but continued her trotting and squatting.
The irritation came to a head one afternoon in the early days of autumn when, with persistent ill-luck, he had been fishing a mile or so from home. Various causes combined to bring about the actual outbreak; a growing anxiety with regard to the winter supply of provisions, sharpened by the discovery, the night before, that a considerable proportion of his store of vegetables was a failure and already malodorous; the ill-success of several hours’ fishing, and gusty, unpleasant weather that chilled him as he huddled by the water. The weather worsened after midday, the gusts bringing rain in their wake; a cold slanting shower that sent him, in all haste, to the clump of trees where Ada had sheltered since the morning. The sight of her sitting there to keep an eye on him—uselessly watchful and shivering to no purpose—annoyed him suddenly and violently; he turned on her sharply, as the shower passed, and bade her go home on the instant. She was to keep a good fire, a blazing fire—he would be drenched and chilled by the evening. She was to have water boiling that the meal might be cooked the moment he returned with the wherewithal. … While he spoke she eyed him with questioning, distrustful sullenness; then, convinced that he meant what he said, half rose—only, after a moment of further hesitation, to slide down to her former position with her back against the trunk of a beech-tree.
“I don’t want to,” she said doggedly. “I want to stay ’ere. I don’t see why I shouldn’t. What d’yer want to get rid of me for?”
The suspicion that lay at the back of the refusal infuriated him: it was suddenly intolerable to be followed and spied on, and he lost his temper badly. The rough-tongued vehemence of his anger surprised himself as much as it frightened his wife; he swore at her, threatened to duck her in the stream, and poured out his grievances abusively. What good was she?—a clog on him, who could not even tend a fire, a helpless idiot who had to be waited on, a butterfingered idler without brains! Let her do what he told her and make herself of use, unless she wanted to be turned out to fend for herself. … Much of what he said was justified, but it was put savagely and coarsely; and when—cowed, perhaps, by the suggestion of a ducking—Ada had taken to her heels in tears, he was remorseful as well as surprised at his own vehemence. He had not known himself as a man who could rail brutally and use threats to a woman; the revelation of his new possibilities troubled him; and when, towards sundown, he gathered up his meagre prey and stepped out homeward, it was with the full intention of making amends to Ada for the roughness of his recent outburst.
His path took him through a copse of brushwood into what had been a cart-track; now grass-grown and crumbling between hedges that straggled and encroached. The wind, rising steadily, was sweeping ragged clouds before it and as he emerged from the shelter of the copse he was met by a stinging rain. He bent his head to it, in shivering discomfort, thrusting chilled hands under his cloak for warmth and longing for the blaze and the good warm meal that should thaw them; he had left the copse a good minute behind him when, from the further side of the overgrown hedge, he heard sudden rending of brambles, a thud, and a human cry. A yard or two on was a gap in the hedge where a gate still swung on its hinges; he rushed to it, quivering at the thought of possibilities—and found Ada struggling to her knees!
She began to cry loudly when she saw him, like a child caught in flagrant transgression; protesting, with bawling and angry tears, that “she wasn’t going to be ordered about” and “she should staiy just where she liked!” It did not take him long to gather that her previous flight had been a semblance only and that, shivering and haunted by ridiculous suspicion, she had watched him all the afternoon from behind the screen of the copse wood—for company partly, but chiefly to make sure he was there. Seeing him gather up his tackle and depart homeward,
