oked up, bewildered.

"Hunting catarrhs, eh?" he growled, eying her keenly. "Got your father
on the Bourbons, so took the chance to come and find you. He'll not
miss ME for an hour. That man has a natural hankering after treason
against the people. Lord, Margret! what a stiff old head he'd have
carried to the guillotine! How he'd have looked at the canaille!"

He helped her up gently enough.

"Your bonnet's like a wet rag,"--with a furtive glance at the worn-out
face. A hungry face always, with her life unfed by its stingy few
crumbs of good; but to-night it was vacant with utter loss.

She got up, trying to laugh cheerfully, and went beside him down the
road.

"You saw that painted Jezebel to-night, and"----stopping abruptly.

She had not heard him, and he followed her doggedly, with an occasional
snort or grunt or other inarticulate damn at the obstinate mud. She
stopped at last, with a quick gasp. Looking at her, he chafed her limp
hands,--his huge, uncouth face growing pale. When she was better, he
said, gravely,--

"I want you, Margret. Not at home, child. I want to show you
something."

He turned with her suddenly off the main road into a by-path, helping
her along, watching her stealthily, but going on with his disjointed,
bearish growls. If it stung her from her pain, vexing her, he did not
care.

"I want to show you a bit of hell: outskirt. You're in a fit state:
it'll do you good. I'm minister there. The clergy can't attend to it
just now: they're too busy measuring God's truth by the States'--Rights
doctrine, or the Chicago Platform. Consequence, religion yields to
majorities. Are you able? It's only a step."

She went on indifferently. The night was breathless and dark. Black,
wet gusts dragged now and then through the skyless fog, striking her
face with a chill. The Doctor quit talking, hurrying her, watching her
anxiously. They came at last to the railway-track, with long trains of
empty freight-cars.

"We are nearly there," he whispered. "It's time you knew your work,
and forgot your weakness. The curse of pampered generations. 'High
Norman blood,'--pah!"

There was a broken gap in the fence. He led her through it into a
muddy yard. Inside was one of those taverns you will find in the
suburbs of large cities, haunts of the lowest vice. This one was a
smoky frame, standing on piles over an open space where hogs were
rooting. Half a dozen drunken Irishmen were playi