d fellow," he said somewhat thickly. "He knows enough to
appreciate a man like me, and we both have larks, now let me tell you."

"Well, have your larks; but don't sit and drink yourself blind before my
very eyes. Why don't you go?"

"Cause I don't want'er--," growing more and more mellow, as the liquor
went fuming to his head, already pretty heavily loaded with brandy and
wine. "Where's the little rooster, I tell yer."

"In the streets, and he's too much like his father to ever come home,
'till he's gone after, and dragged in."

"Well, go and drag him in then, I'm goin' ter see 'im."

"I won't!" shrieked the woman, now fairly beside herself with rage; "go
home to your lady wife, and take her my compliments; tell her that I
turned you out."

John Burrill staggered to his feet, uttering a brutal oath.

"You'll turn me out, will you? You say _won't_ to me; you are forgetting
my training, Mrs. Nance; I'll teach you that John Burrill's yer master
yet; go for the boy."

But the woman did not stir.

"You won't, eh!" clutching her fiercely, and shaking her violently, "now
will you?"

"No, you brute."

"Then, take that, and that, and that!"

[Illustration: "Then take that, and that."]

A rain of swift blows; a shriek ringing out on the stillness of the
night; then a swift step, the door dashed in, and John Burrill is
measuring his length upon the bare floor.

The woman reels, as the clutch of the miscreant loosens from her arm,
but recovers herself and turns a bruised face toward the timely
intruder. It is Clifford Heath.

"Are you badly hurt?" he asks, anxiously.

She lifts a hand to her poor bruised face, and aching head, and then
sinking into a chair says, wearily:

"It's nothing--for me. Look out, sir!"

This last was an exclamation of warning, John Burrill had staggered to
his feet, and was aiming an unsteady blow at the averted head of Doctor
Heath.

The latter turned swiftly, comprehending the situation at a glance, and
once more felled the brute to the floor.

By this time others had appeared upon the scene,--neighbors, roused by
the cry of the woman.

Doctor Heath bent again to examine her face. He had scarcely observed
the features of the man he had just knocked down; and he now asked:

"Is--this man you husband, madam?"

The woman reddened under her bruises.

"He _was_ my husband," she said, bitterly. "He is--John Burrill."

Clifford Heath started back, thinking, first of all, of Sybi