Moreover, as she hurried home appalled, her quick ear caught the conversation of two coarse women while they walked behind her.
"She's got it now," said one.
"Serve her right, too," answered the other, "for running after and marrying a Spanish don." "Marrying ?" broke in the first, "it was the best that she could do.

She couldn't stop to ask questions.

Some corpses must be buried quickly." Glancing behind her, Lysbeth saw the creature nip her nostrils with her fingers, as though to shut out an evil smell.
Then she could bear it no longer, and turned upon them.
"You are evil slanderers," she said, and walked away swiftly, pursued by the sound of their loud, insulting laughter.
At the house she was told that two men were waiting to see her.

They proved to be creditors clamouring for large sums of money, which she could not pay.

Lysbeth told them that she knew nothing of the matter.
Thereupon they showed her her own writing at the foot of deeds, and she remembered that she had signed more things than she chose to keep count of, everything indeed that the man who called himself her husband put before her, if only to win an hour of blessed freedom from his presence.
At length the duns went away vowing that they would have their money if they dragged the bed from under her.
After that came loneliness and silence.