?' said Dempster, in his most brutal tone.

'Do change your coat and waistcoat, they are so dusty. I've laid all your
things out ready.'

'O, you have, have you?' After a few minutes he rose very deliberately
and walked upstairs into his bedroom. Janet had often been scolded before
for not laying out his clothes, and she thought now, not without some
wonder, that this attention of hers had brought him to compliance.

Presently he called out, 'Janet!' and she went upstairs.

'Here! Take that!' he said, as soon as she reached the door, flinging at
her the coat she had laid out. 'Another time, leave me to do as I please,
will you?'

The coat, flung with great force, only brushed her shoulder, and fell
some distance within the drawing-room, the door of which stood open just
opposite. She hastily retreated as she saw the waistcoat coming, and one
by one the clothes she had laid out were all flung into the drawing-room.

Janet's face flushed with anger, and for the first time in her life her
resentment overcame the long cherished pride that made her hide her
griefs from the world. There are moments when by some strange impulse we
contradict our past selves--fatal moments, when a fit of passion, like a
lava stream, lays low the work of half our lives. Janet thought, 'I will
not pick up the clothes; they shall lie there until the visitors come,
and he shall be ashamed of himself.'

There was a knock at the door, and she made haste to seat herself in the
drawing-room, lest the servant should enter and remove the clothes, which
were lying half on the table and half on the ground. Mr. Lowme entered
with a less familiar visitor, a client of Dempster's, and the next moment
Dempster himself came in.

His eye fell at once on the clothes, and then turned for an instant with
a devilish glance of concentrated hatred on Janet, who, still flushed and
excited, affected unconsciousness. After shaking hands with his visitors
he immediately rang the bell.

'Take those clothes away,' he said to the servant, not looking at Janet
again.

During dinner, she kept up her assumed air of indifference, and tried to
seem in high spirits, laughing and talking more than usual. In reality,
she felt as if she had defied a wild beast within the four walls of his
den, and he was crouching backward in preparation for his deadly spring.
Dempster affected to take no notice of her, talked obstreperously, and
drank steadily.

About eleven the party di