ents may be
omitted; but here he gambled, there he drank; and in his cups every
virtue dissolved. Rachel's pride did not mend matters; she was a thought
too ready with her resentment; of this, however, she was herself aware,
and would forgive the more freely because there was often some obvious
fault on her side before all was said. Quarrels of infinite bitterness
were thus patched up, and the end indefinitely delayed.

In the meantime, tired of travelling, and impoverished by the husband's
follies, the hapless couple returned to London, where a pure fluke with
some mining shares introduced Minchin to finer gambling than he had
found abroad. The man was bitten. There was a fortune waiting for
special knowledge and a little ready cash; and Alexander Minchin settled
down to make it, taking for the nonce a furnished house in a modest
neighborhood. And here it was that the quarrelling continued to its
culmination in the scene just ended.

"Not another day," said Rachel, "nor a night--if I can be ready before
morning!"

Being still a woman with some strength of purpose, Mrs. Minchin did not
stop at idle words. The interval between the slamming of doors below and
another noise at the top of the house was not one of many minutes. The
other noise was made by Rachel and her empty trunk upon the loftiest and
the narrowest flight of stairs; one of the maids opened their door an
inch.

"I am sorry if I disturbed you," their mistress said. "These stairs are
so very narrow. No, thank you, I can manage quite well." And they heard
her about until they slept.

It was no light task to which Rachel had set her hand; she was going
back to Australia by the first boat, and her packing must be done that
night. Her resolve only hardened as her spirit cooled. The sooner her
departure, the less his opposition; let her delay, and the callousness
of the passing brute might give place to the tyranny of the normal man.
But she was going, whether or no; not another day--though she would
doubtless see its dawn. It was the month of September. And she was not
going to fly empty-handed, nor fly at all; she was going deliberately
away, with a trunk containing all that she should want upon the voyage.
The selection was not too easily made. In his better moods the creature
had been lavish enough; and more than once did Rachel snatch from drawer
or wardrobe that which remained some moments in her hand, while the
incidents of purchase and the first joys