for I swear to you this, as true as there's a God
in heaven, I would cut his throat if he dared to
lay a finger on me."

"And so he would," said Mrs. Broughton.
"I know that!"

"My husband could defend himself," cried
Laura, scornfully; but she turned very pale as
she spoke, and it was evident that her own
thoughts frightened her, however brave her
words.

"Could he!" sneered Sam." I am glad you
think so; but I advise you not to try it on. I
can be good natured, you see, sometimes, and I
advise you not; just for your own sake, you
know."

"And are we never to get rid of this horrible
life!" exclaimed Laura, clasping her hands
before her eyes.

"All in good time, my dear," said the man,
brutally. "Perhaps sooner than you expect."
And he looked at Mrs. Broughton, watching
him out of the badly-cut corners, with eyes that
were more snake-like than human. "At all
events, you are not going to get rid of me just
yet. Give me something to eat."

"Mamma!" appealed Laura.

She sighed, and shrugged her shoulders.
"What can I say, my dear? He is hungry,"
she said. "Perhaps," she then whispered,
"if you treat him kindly, and give him what
he wants, he will go before your husband
comes back, else I would not answer for
the consequences if they meet. I do not
command, you know, my dear, I only advise.
He is very wet and hungry and chilled and
wretched, poor fellow, ana I cannot help
pitying him. Suppose you tell Annie to bring
up the tray, and then we will try to get rid of
him quietly."

"I will have nothing to do with it at all,"
said Laura. "I cannot bear the whole thing
any longer, and I will not help in it one way or
another." And she got up from her chair to
leave the room. Her mother would have
prevented her.

"Let her be," said the man. "Let her go;
it is best as it is. Poor little wench," he said,
in almost a softened voice, when she had flung
herself out of the room, "it is hard lines for
her, say what you like! Now then, Louisa, I
want you; but first of all give me something
to eat— and drink."

"They're a-feeding of him now, down in the
dining-room!" cried Annie, when she came down
with the order for the supper-tray, tumblers,
and hot water. "My! when master comes to
know!"

"Missis 'll ketch it," said the cook,
philosophically. The cook had a husband of her own,
and knew what it was for a wife to catch it
pretty liberally.

Warmth and food and brandy, while they
mended Sam's dilapidated body, seemed not to
do much good to his soul. As he drank deeper,
and the sense of physical well-being grew
stronger, he became more stolid and
unmanageable, unassailable by all Mrs. Broughton's
arguments, or reasonings, or caresses, and
sullenly determined to stay there, where he was,
let what would be the consequence. Lying
back in one of the easy-chairs, which his soiled
and dripping clothes had soaked and spoiled
for ever, his bare feet (he had no stockings)
stretched out on the rug, while his muddy boots
were drying, soles uppermost, inside the bright
steel fender, his third tumbler of smoking grog
in his hand— the third and the stiffest of all
the stiff three— the enjoyments to be had from
money swallowed up everything else, even
caution which he so much needed, and ultimate
self-preservation. A kind of deadened stupidity
came over him, a sleep of the intelligence,
which made him forget everything but the mere
sensual pleasure of the moment. Mrs. Broughton
was in despair. She could manage any
situation requiring tact, and facile lying, and
crafty generalship, and quick-fingered moral
scavengership; but between a half-drunken animal
and a high-tempered haughty gentleman:—
she put her hands up to her head, with the
feeling that it would be crushed in the collision.
At last Sam went to sleep, and snored heavily.
Then the little woman busied herself. She put
away the remains of the supper, and locked up
the brandy-bottle; indifferent to the surly kicks
and oaths accompanying, she forced the steaming
boots on to the unwashed, naked feet, and
with her own fair sinewy hands laced the
muddy strings and fastened them; she took up
the shabby old dripping cloth cap from the
table, and skilfully covered over the mark it had
made on the cover; and when she had thus, as
far as she could, cleared off the evidences of the
past and prepared for the exigencies of the
future, she sat down by the sleeping man and
watched him the yellow firelight dancing in
her light blue eyes and dyeing them a sickly
green.

"To think that I once loved that devil!"
she thought; and her forehead grew flat, and her
eyes contracted, and she looked like a snake
coiled for a spring; "to think that I ruined
my life for him, and that he has the right to
claim me before all the world as his WIFE! Oh,
that I could strangle him! that I could murder
him now, and never see his loathed face again!"
Instinctively she clutched his throat, but the
man gave a heavy plunge forward and struck
her face. He was still asleep though, and did
not open his eyes.

"No, that won't do," she then said to herself:
and sat still listening to the fierce night, and
wishing that he might go out into it soon, and
drop down dead in the next street.

After a long pause she suddenly started up.
The clock chimed the quarter— it was past
eleven, and Gordon might be expected home at
any moment. She turned off the gas and raked
out the fire, pouring water on the last embers
which would still burn and glow; she heaped
the chairs about the table, and pushed the easy-
chair, where the man was sleeping, quite into
the shadow of the curtain, half covering it
indeed by the curtain. "I know him," she