, foul
odors, and tobacco smoke, to which a tortured soul must return.

IV.

The following Saturday afternoon, as Ridgeley and Field entered the
office, Williams rose to meet them. He looked different; finer some way,
Field imagined. At any rate, he was perfectly sober. He was freshly
shaven, and though his clothes were rough, he looked like a man of
education. His manner was cold and distant.

"I'd like to be paid off, Mr. Ridgeley," he said. "I guess what's left
of my pay will take me out of this."

"Where do you propose to go?" Ridgeley said kindly.

Williams must have perceived his kindliness, for he answered: "I'm going
home to my wife. I am going to try it once more."

After Williams went out Field said, "I wonder if he'll do it?"

"Oh, I shouldn't wonder. I've seen men brace up just as mysteriously as
that and stay right by their resolutions. I thought he didn't look like
a common lumber Jack when he came in."

"Oh, how happy his wife will be!" Mrs. Field cried when she heard of
Williams's resolution. "She'll save him yet."

"Well, I don't know; depends on what kind of a woman she is."

THE OWNER OF THE MILL FARM.

Beyond his necessity, a tired man is not apt to be polite. This Mrs.
Miner had generalized from long experience with her husband. She knew at
a distance, by the way he wore his hat when he came in out of the field,
whether he was in a peculiarly savage mood, or only in his usual state
of sullen indifference.

As he came in out of the barn on this spring day, he turned to look up
at the roof with a curse. Something had angered him. He did not stop to
comb his hair after washing at the pump, but came into the neat kitchen
and surlily took a seat at the table.

Mrs. Miner, a slender little woman, quite ladylike in appearance, had
the dinner all placed in steaming abundance upon the table, and the
children, sitting side by side, watched their father in silence. There
was an air of foreboding, of apprehension, over them all, as if they
feared some brutal outbreak on his part.

He placed his elbows on the table. His sleeves were rolled up,
displaying his red and much sunburned arms. He wore no coat, and his
face was sullen, and held, besides, a certain vicious quality, like that
of a bad-tempered dog.

He had not spoken to his wife directly for many weeks. For years it had
been his almost constant habit to address her through the children, by
calling her "she" or "your mother." H