Yo'll promise, sir ?' Jeremiah Foster looked in her face, and seeing the wistful, eager look, he was touched almost against his judgment into giving the promise required; she went on.
'Upon a Tuesday morning, three weeks ago, I think, tho' for t' matter o' time it might ha' been three years, Kinraid come home; come back for t' claim me as his wife, and I were wed to Philip! I met him i' t' road at first; and I couldn't tell him theere.

He followed me into t' house--Philip's house, sir, behind t' shop--and somehow I told him all, how I were a wedded wife to another.

Then he up and said I'd a false heart--me false, sir, as had eaten my daily bread in bitterness, and had wept t' nights through, all for sorrow and mourning for his death! Then he said as Philip knowed all t' time he were alive and coming back for me; and I couldn't believe it, and I called Philip, and he come, and a' that Charley had said were true; and yet I were Philip's wife! So I took a mighty oath, and I said as I'd niver hold Philip to be my lawful husband again, nor iver forgive him for t' evil he'd wrought us, but hold him as a stranger and one as had done me a heavy wrong.' She stopped speaking; her story seemed to her to end there.

But her listener said, after a pause, 'It were a cruel wrong, I grant thee that; but thy oath were a sin, and thy words were evil, my poor lass.

What happened next ?' 'I don't justly remember,' she said, wearily.