I noticed, with a certain surprise that his favorite stick was not in his hand, and was not lying near him.
"Business," he said in answer to Naomi, not very graciously--"business between Silas and me.

That's what it means, if you must know." Naomi went on, woman-like, with her questioning, heedless of the reception which they might meet with from an irritated man.
"Why were you both away at prayers and breakfast-time ?" she asked next.
"We had too much to do," Ambrose gruffly replied, "and we were too far from the house." "Very odd," said Naomi.

"This has never happened before since I have been at the farm." "Well, live and learn.

It has happened now." The tone in which he spoke would have warned any man to let him alone.
But warnings which speak by implication only are thrown away on women.
The woman, having still something in her mind to say, said it.
"Have you seen anything of John Jago this morning ?" The smoldering ill-temper of Ambrose burst suddenly--why, it was impossible to guess--into a flame.

"How many more questions am I to answer ?" he broke out violently.