came frenzied, for Manfred spent both principal, interest and
sinking fund on his affinity. Starvation and the cold world were staring
them in the face, for the wolf and the collection man were howling at
the door. The city cut off their light and water supply for non-payment
of dues, and were about to seize the property for arrears; so they were
on the water wagon and in darkness, but still they would not regain
consciousness.

The usual course of events did not apply in this strange case. There was
no jealousy floating on the surface on the part of the husband and wife.
Maud ignored Manfred's insane attitude towards Flossy because she had
the same love-blind sickness and could see no one but Fred. Far from
being jealous, Manfred viewed his wife in the light of a white man's
burden which he could not shake off. Christian's burden was fiction
beside it. Flossy was the only star in his firmament--the only toad in
his puddle.

The children were neglected, and ran wild in the bush. It was as though
some great Belgian calamity had overtaken the household and had riven it
asunder. The garden lost its lustre, irrigation was discontinued, the
fruit trees lost their leaves prematurely; the very willows wept. The
pickets fell from the fence unheeded; the stovepipe smoked, and the
chickens laid away in the neighbor's yard. The house assumed the
appearance of a deserted sty. Divorce was suggested inwardly--that
modern refuge to which the weak-minded flee in seeking a drastic cure
for a temporary ailment; and all this disruption in two hearts which had
tripped along together so smoothly and pleasantly. Surely love,
misapplied, is a curse. It is surely sometimes a severe form of
insanity. If so, those two were insane, just waiting for the pressure to
be removed from the brain. And, theirs was a pitiful and unfruitful case
indeed. They were--

Thirst crazed; fastened to a tree,
By a sweet river running free.

In the meantime Fred and Flossy were having "barrels" of amusement at
the expense of the demented ones. Fred and Flossy were perhaps in the
wrong in causing such an upheaval in a very model household. But they
were young, and the mischief had taken root before they suspected that
any such danger was in existence. When the awfulness of the situation
dawned upon them they looked at each other one day in the interrogative
and agreed that the poisonous weed should be uprooted. But since it had
grown to such prop