the door, and went out.

"Oh! Charlie," Mrs. Mulready said to her second son, who, sobbing
bitterly, had thrown himself down in a chair by the table, and was
sitting with his head on his hands, "there will be something terrible
come of this! Ned's temper is so dreadful, and my husband was wrong,
too. He should never have beaten him so, though Ned did say such things
to him. What shall I do? these quarrels will be the death of me. I
suppose Ned will be wandering about all night again. Do put on your cap,
Charlie, and go out and see if you can find him, and persuade him to
come home and go to bed; perhaps he will listen to you."

Charlie was absent an hour, and returned saying that he could not find
his brother.

"Perhaps he's gone up to Varley as he did last time," Mrs. Mulready
said. "I am sure I hope he has, else he will be wandering about all
night, and he had such a strange lock in his face that there's no saying
where he might go to, or what he might do."

Charlie was almost heartbroken, and sat up till long past his usual
time, waiting for his brother's return. At last his eyes would no longer
keep open, and he stumbled upstairs to bed, where he fell asleep almost
as his head touched the pillow, in spite of his resolution to be awake
until Ned returned.

Downstairs Mrs. Mulready kept watch. She did not expect Ned to return,
but she was listening for the wheels of her husband's gig. It was
uncertain at what time he would return; for when he rose from the tea
table she had asked him what time he expected to be back, and he had
replied that he could not say; he should stop until the repairs were
finished, and she was to go to bed and not bother.

So at eleven o'clock she went upstairs, for once before when he had been
out late and she had sat up he had been much annoyed; but after she got
in bed she lay for hours listening for the sound of the wheels. At last
she fell asleep and dreamed that Ned and her husband were standing at
the end of a precipice grappling fiercely together in a life and death
struggle. She was awaked at last by a knocking at the door; she glanced
at her watch, which hung above her head; it was but half past six.

"What is it, Mary?"

"Please, mum, there's a constable below, and he wants to speak to you
immediate."

Mrs. Mulready sprang from the bed and began to dress herself hurriedly.
All sorts of mischief that might have come to Ned passed rapidly through
her mind; her husband had n