ve been, Mary," she said, "you can not enter into
the feelings of one in my position, to whom the very tone even of
coarse language is unspeakably odious. It makes me sick with disgust.
Coarseness is what no lady can endure. I beg you will not mention Mr.
Redmain to me again."

"Dear Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, "ugly as such language is, there are
many things worse. It seems to me worse that a wife should not go near
her husband when he is suffering than that he should in his pain speak
bad words."

She had been on the point of saying that a thin skin was not purity,
but bethought herself in time.

"You are scarcely in a position to lay down the law for me, Mary," said
Hesper. "We will, if you please, drop the subject."

Mary's words were overheard, as was a good deal in the house more than
was reckoned on, and reached Mr. Redmain, whom they perplexed: what
could the young woman hope from taking his part?

One morning, after the arrival of Mewks, his man, Mary heard Mr.
Redmain calling him in a tone which betrayed that he had been calling
for some time: the house was an old one, and the bells were neither in
good trim, nor was his in a convenient position. She thought first to
find Mewks, but pity rose in her heart. She ran to Mr. Redmain's door,
which stood half open, and showed herself.

"Can _I_ not do something for you, sir?" she said.

"Yes, you can. Go and tell that lumbering idiot to come to me
instantly. No! here, you!--there's a good girl!--Oh, damn!--Just give
me your hand, and help me to turn an inch or two."

Change of posture relieved him a little. "Thank you," he said. "That is
better. Wait a few moments, will you--till the rascal comes?"

Mary stood back, a little behind him, thinking not to annoy him with
the sight of her.

"What are you doing there?" he cried. "I like to see what people are
about in my room. Come in front here, and let me look at you."

Mary obeyed, and with a smile took the position he pointed out to her.
Immediately followed another agony of pain, in which he looked beset
with demons, whom he not feared but hated. Mary hurried to him, and, in
the compassion which she inherited long back of Eve, took his hand, the
fingers of which were twisting themselves into shapes like tree-roots.
With a hoarse roar, he dashed hers from him, as if it had been a
serpent. She returned to her place, and stood.

"What did you mean by that?" he said, when he came to himself. "Do you
want to