take
some step; and yet everything was so difficult.

It was one o'clock, and Mrs. Pettifer rose from her seat, saying, 'I must
go and see about dinner.'

The movement and the sound startled Janet from her reverie. It seemed as
if an opportunity were escaping her, and she said hastily, 'Is Mr. Tryan
in the town today, do you think?'

'No, I should think not, being Saturday, you know,' said Mrs. Pettifer,
her face lighting up with pleasure; 'but he _would_ come, if he was sent
for. I can send Jesson's boy with a note to him any time. Should you like
to see him?'

'Yes, I think I should.'

'Then I'll send for him this instant.'

Chapter 17

When Dempster awoke in the morning, he was at no loss to account to
himself for the fact that Janet was not by his side. His hours of
drunkenness were not cut off from his other hours by any blank wall of
oblivion; he remembered what Janet had done to offend him the evening
before, he remembered what he had done to her at midnight, just as he
would have remembered if he had been consulted about a right of road.

The remembrance gave him a definite ground for the extra ill-humour which
had attended his waking every morning this week, but he would not admit
to himself that it cost him any anxiety. 'Pooh,' he said inwardly, 'she
would go straight to her mother's. She's as timid as a hare; and she'll
never let anybody know about it. She'll be back again before night.'

But it would be as well for the servants not to know anything of the
affair: so he collected the clothes she had taken off the night before,
and threw them into a fire-proof closet of which he always kept the key
in his pocket. When he went down stairs he said to the housemaid, 'Mrs.
Dempster is gone to her mother's; bring in the breakfast.'

The servants, accustomed to hear domestic broils, and to see their
mistress put on her bonnet hastily and go to her mother's, thought it
only something a little worse than usual that she should have gone
thither in consequence of a violent quarrel, either at midnight, or in
the early morning before they were up. The housemaid told the cook what
she supposed had happened; the cook shook her head and said, 'Eh, dear,
dear!' but they both expected to see their mistress back again in an hour
or two.

Dempster, on his return home the evening before, had ordered his man, who
lived away from the house, to bring up his horse and gig from the stables
at ten. After breakfast