very bad after all. I'm all right—I am. Father
and you shan't see no difference in me, leastways,
not if you'll forbear naming of her ever,
ever again. She's turned my heart to stone,
that's all! No great matter!"

He laid his hand on his broad chest and
heaved a great gasping sigh. "This morning I
had a heart o' flesh here," he said; "now it's a
cold, heavy stone. But it's no great matter."

"Oh, don't ye speak like that, my lad!" his
mother cried, bursting into tears, and throwing
her arms around him. "It kills me to hear ye!"

But he gently unwound those arms, and
kissing her on the cheek, led her to the door.
"I must go to work now," he said; and,
descending the stairs before her, he quitted the
cottage with a firm step.

From that hour no one heard him speak
of Susan Gibbs. He never inquired into the
circumstances of her stay at Ormiston; he never
spoke of them, nor of her, to her relations or to
his own. He avoided the former; he was silent
and reserved with the latter. Susan appeared
to be, for him, as though she had never been.

And from that hour he was an altered being.
He went about his work as actively, and did it
as carefully, as ever; but it was done sternly,
doggedly, like an imperative but unwelcome
duty. No man ever saw a smile upon his lips;
no jocular word ever escaped them. Grave
and uncompromising, he went his ungenial way,
seeking for no sympathy, and bestowing none,
avoiding all companionship save that of his
parents;—a sad and solitary man.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gibbs's "Place" on Cumner
Common was advertised as to be let; strangers
hired it, and for nearly three years nothing was
seen of him or of his wife. Then news arrived
one day that they were to be expected shortly,
and quite a ferment of expectation was created
in the little village. They came, and certain
rumours that had reached it from time to time were
found to have only too much foundation in truth.

For it had oozed out, as such things do ooze,
that Gibbs shamefully ill used his pretty wife,
and that the marriage, which on his side
had been one of love, had turned out miserably.
Her father and brothers, who had
been to see them more than once, had been
strangely reserved on the subject of those visits,
and it was generally understood that the old
farmer lamented his daughter's marriage now,
as much as he had formerly longed for it. No
one wondered, when they saw her. She was the
shadow of her former self; still lovely, but
broken, cowed, pale; all the bloom faded; all
the spirit crushed out of her. No smile was
ever seen upon those pretty lips now, except
when she played with her boy, a fair-haired
little fellow, the image of herself. But even
in her intercourse with this child she was sternly
restricted, and her tyrant would not unfrequently
dismiss him with an oath, and forbid her
to follow him to his nursery.

In spite of their being such near neighbours,
the Gibbses had been some time in the place
before George met his former love. He never
went to Cumner church (nor to any, indeed),
and she never quitted her own house, except
to drive with her husband, or walk through
the Southanger Woods to her father's. George
might have beheld her driving past his father's
door with a high-stepping horse that always
seemed on the point of running away; but
he never looked at her, nor replied to his
mother's remarks respecting her and her smart
turn-out. Yet though he resolutely kept the
door of his own lips, he could not close the
lips of other people, or his own ears. Do
what he would, the Gibbses and their doings
pursued him still. His master's labourers
gossiped about the husband's brutality; the
baker's boy had no end of stories to tell,
of the oaths he had heard, and even the
blows he had witnessed, when "Gibbs was
more than usual excited with drink." The
poor frightened wife was understood to have
declared that but for her dread of what he
might be driven to do in his fury, she would go
before a magistrate and swear the peace against
him. George could not close his ears to all this;
and men said that the expression of his eyes on
those occasions was not good to look upon.

One Sunday, the Eades were sitting over
their frugal one o'clock dinner, when they
heard the sound of a carriage driving furiously
past. Mrs. Eade caught up her stick, and, in
spite of her lameness, hobbled to the window.

"I thought so!" she cried. "It's Gibbs
driving to Tenelms, and drunk again, seemingly.
See how he's flogging of the horse.
And he's got the little lad, too! He'll not rest
till he've broken that child's neck, or the
mother's. Simmons declares——"

She stopped, suddenly aware of her son's
breath upon her cheek. He had actually come
to the window, and now, leaning over her, was
gazing sternly at the figures in the carriage,
flying down the hill towards the Tenelms road.

"I wish he might break his own neck!"
George muttered between his teeth.

"Oh, George! George! don't name such
things," Mrs. Eade cried, with a pale shocked
face. "It ain't Christian. We've all need of
repentance, and our times is in His hand."

"If ye frequented church, my lad, 'stead of
keeping away, as I grieve to see ye do," his father
said, severely, "ye'd have better feelings in your
heart. They'll never prosper ye, mark my words."

George had returned to his seat, but he rose
again as his father said this. "Church!" he cried,
in a loud harsh voice—"I was going there once,
and it wasn't permitted. I'll go there no more.
D'ye think," he continued, while his white lips
trembled with uncontrollable emotion—"d'ye
think, because I'm quiet, and do my work
reg'lar, d'ye think I've forgotten? Forgotten!"
He brought his clenched fist down upon the table
with startling violence. "I tell ye when I forget,
I'll be lying stark and stiff in my coffin! Let
be—let be!" as his mother tried to interrupt
him; "ye mean well, I know, but women
haven't the judgment to tell when to speak, and
when to hold hard. Ye'd best never name that
scoundrel 'fore me again, nor yet church." With
that, he went from the room and from the house,