e growled, eying her keenly. "Got your father on
the Bourbons, so took the chance to come and find you. He'll not miss _me_
for an hour. That man has a natural hankering after treason against the
people. Lord, Margaret! what a stiff old head he'd have carried to the
guillotine! How he'd have looked at the _canaille_!"

He helped her up gently enough.

"Your bonnet's like a wet rag,"--with a furtive glance at the worn-out
face. A hungry face always, with her life unfed by its stingy few crumbs
of good; but to-night it was vacant with utter loss.

She got up, trying to laugh cheerfully, and went beside him down the road.

"You saw that painted Jezebel to-night, and"--stopping abruptly.

She had not heard him, and he followed her doggedly, with an occasional
snort or grunt or other inarticulate damn at the obstinate mud. She
stopped at last, with a quick gasp. Looking at her, he chafed her limp
hands,--his huge, uncouth face growing pale. When she was better, he said,
gravely,--

"I want you, Margaret. Not at home, child. I want to show you something."

He turned with her suddenly off the main road into a by-path, helping her
along, watching her stealthily, but going on with his disjointed, bearish
growls. If it stung her from her pain, vexing her, he did not care.

"I want to show you a bit of hell: outskirt. You're in a fit state: it'll
do you good. I'm minister there. The clergy can't attend to it just now:
they're too busy measuring God's truth by the States'-Rights doctrine or
the Chicago Platform. Consequence, religion yields to majorities. Are you
able? It's only a step."

She went on indifferently. The night was breathless and dark. Black, wet
gusts dragged now and then through the skyless fog, striking her face with
a chill. The Doctor quit talking, hurrying her, watching her anxiously.
They came at last to the railway-track, with long trains of empty
freight-cars.

"We are nearly there," he whispered. "It's time you knew your work, and
forgot your weakness. The curse of pampered generations. 'High Norman
blood,'--pah!"

There was a broken gap in the fence. He led her through it into a muddy
yard. Inside was one of those taverns you will find in the suburbs of
large cities, haunts of the lowest vice. This one was a smoky frame
standing on piles over an open space where hogs were rooting. Half a dozen
drunken Irishmen were playing poker with a pack of greasy cards in an
out-house. He led her up the rick