remembrance of his despised, but terrible,
warning.

With the old life returned the misery of
the cottage. The smiles, which had begun
to appear with the unwonted sunshine,
were seen no more. Instead, returned to
his poor wife's face the old pale and heart-
broken look. The cottage lost its neat and
cheerful air, and the melancholy of neglect
was visible. Sometimes at night were overheard,
by a chance passer-by, cries and sobs
from that ill-omened dwelling. Tom Chuff
was now often drunk, and not very often
at home, except when he came in to sweep
away his poor wife's earnings.

Tom had long lost sight of the honest
old parson. There was shame mixed with
his degradation. He had grace enough
left when he saw the thin figure of " t' sir"
walking along the road to turn out of his
way and avoid meeting him. The clergyman
shook his head, and sometimes
groaned, when his name was mentioned.
His horror and regret were more for the
poor wife than for the relapsed sinner, for
her case was pitiable indeed.

Her brother, Jack Everton, came over
from Hexley, having heard stories of all
this, determined to beat Tom, for his ill-
treatment of his sister, within an inch of
his life. Luckily, perhaps, for all
concerned, Tom happened to be away upon
one of his long excursions, and poor Nell
besought her brother, in extremity of terror,
not to interpose between them. So he took
his leave and went home muttering and
sulky.

Now it happened a few months later that
Nelly Chuff fell sick. She had been ailing,
as heart-broken people do, for a good while.
But now the end had come.

There was a coroner's inquest when she
died, for the doctor had doubts as to
whether a blow had not, at least, hastened her
death. Nothing certain, however, came of
the inquiry. Tom Chuff had left his home
more than two days before his wife's death.
He was absent upon his lawless business
still when the coroner had held his quest.

Jack Everton came over from Hexley to
attend the dismal obsequies of his sister.
He was more incensed than ever with the
wicked husband who, one way or other,
had hastened Nelly's death. The inquest
had closed early in the day. The husband
had not appeared.

An occasional companion—perhaps I
ought to say accomplice—of Chuff 's
happened to turn up. He had left him on the
borders of Westmoreland, and said he
would probably be home next day. But
Everton affected not to believe it. Perhaps
it was to Tom Chuff, he suggested, a secret
satisfaction to crown the history of his bad
married life with the scandal of his absence
from the funeral of his neglected and
abused wife.

Everton had taken on himself the direction
of the melancholy preparations. He
had ordered a grave to be opened for his
sister beside her mother's, in Shackleton
churchyard, at the other side of the moor.
For the purpose, as I have said, of marking
the callous neglect of her husband, he
determined that the funeral should take
place that night. His brother Dick had
accompanied him, and they and his sister,
with Mary and the children, and a couple of
the neighbours, formed the humble cortége.

Jack Everton said he would wait
behind, on the chance of Tom Chuff's coming
in time, that he might tell him what had
happened, and make him cross the moor
with him to meet the funeral. His real
object, I think, was to inflict upon the
villain the drubbing he had so long wished to
give him. Any how, he was resolved, by
crossing the moor, to reach the churchyard
in time to anticipate the arrival of the
funeral, and to have a few words with the
vicar, clerk, and sexton, all old friends ot
his, for the parish of Shackleton was the
place of his birth and early recollections.

But Tom Chuff did not appear at his
house that night. In surly mood, and without
a shilling in his pocket, he was making
his way homeward. His bottle of gin, his
last investment, half emptied, was, with its
neck protruding, as usual on such returns,
in his coat-pocket.

His way home lay across the moor of
Catstean, and the point at which he best
knew the passage was from the churchyard
of Shackleton. He vaulted the low wall
that forms its boundary, and strode across
the graves, and over many a flat, half-
buried tombstone, toward the side of the
churchyard next Catstean Moor.

The old church of Shackleton and its
tower rose, close at his right, like a black
shadow against the sky. It was a moonless
night, but clear. By this time he had
reached the low boundary wall, at the
other side, that overlooks the wide expanse
of Catstean Moor. He stood by one of the
huge old beech trees, and leaned his back
to its smooth trunk. Had he ever seen
the sky look so black, and the stars shine
out and blink so vividly? There was a
deathlike silence over the scene, like the