She laid the violin on the table, and sitting down in that rush-bottomed
chair in which Westray had sat the night before, put her head between
her hands and burst into tears.

"Oh," she said between her sobs in a strange and uncontrolled
voice--"oh, I am so miserable--_everything_ is so miserable. There are
father's debts not paid, not even the undertaker's bill paid for his
funeral, and no money for anything, and poor Aunt Euphemia working
herself to death. And now she says she will have to sell the little
things we have in the house, and then when there is a chance of a decent
lodger, a quiet, gentlemanly man, you go and abuse him, and say these
rude things to me, because he rings the bell. How does he know aunt is
out? how does he know she won't let me answer the bell when she's in?
Of course, he thinks we have a servant, and then _you_ make me so sad.
I couldn't sleep last night, because I knew you were drinking. I heard
you when we went to bed playing trashy things that you hate except when
you are not yourself. It makes me ill to think that you have been with
us all these years, and been so kind to me, and now are come to this.
Oh, do not do it! Surely we all are wretched enough, without your
adding this to our wretchedness."

He got up from the stool and took her hand.

"Don't, Anstice--don't! I broke myself of it before, and I will break
myself again. It was a woman drove me to it then, and sent me down the
hill, and now I didn't know there was a living soul would care whether
old Sharnall drank himself to death or not. If I could only think there
was someone who cared; if I could only think you cared."

"Of course I care"--and as she felt his hand tighten she drew her own
lightly away--"of course we care--poor aunt and I--or she would care, if
she knew, only she is so good she doesn't guess. I hate to see those
horrid glasses taken in after your supper. It used to be so different,
and I loved to hear the `Pastoral' and `Les Adieux' going when the house
was still."

It is sad when man's unhappiness veils from him the smiling face of
nature. The promise of the early morning was maintained. The sky was
of a translucent blue, broken with islands and continents of clouds,
dazzling white like cotton-wool. A soft, warm breeze blew from the
west, the birds sang merrily in every garden bush, and Cullerne was a
town of gardens, where men could sit each under his own vine and
fig-tree. The bees issu