k down upon the bare floor and wept.
You could not have recognised her; her pretty face was all blood and
dirt. She held in her hand the fragment of a hat, and her dolman had
disappeared. Her husband was not in much better plight; his waistcoat
and shirt were rent open, his coat was filth-smeared, and it seemed
likely that he had lost the sight of one eye. Sitting there in drunken
lassitude, he breathed nothing but threats of future vengeance.

An hour later noises of a familiar kind sounded beneath the window. A
woman's voice was raised in the fury of mad drunkenness, and a man
answered her with threats and blows.

'That's mother,' sobbed Pennyloaf. 'I knew she wouldn't get over
to-day. She never did get over a Bank-holiday.'

Mrs. Candy had taken the pledge when her husband consented to return
and live with her. Unfortunately she did not at the same time transfer
herself to a country where there are no beer-shops and no
Bank-holidays. Short of such decisive change, what hope for her?

Bob was already asleep, breathing stertorously. As for Pennyloaf, she
was so overwearied that hours passed before oblivion fell upon her
aching eyelids. She was thinking all the time that on the morrow it
would be necessary to pawn her wedding-ring.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BRINGER OF ILL NEWS

Knowing the likelihood that Clara Hewett would go from home for
Bank-holiday, Sidney made it his request before he left Hanover Street
on Sunday night that Jane might be despatched on her errand at an early
hour next morning. At eight o'clock, accordingly, Snowdon went forth
with his granddaughter, and, having discovered the street to which
Sidney had directed him, he waited at a distance whilst Jane went to
make her inquiries. In a few minutes the girl rejoined him.

'Miss Hewett has gone away,' she reported.

'To spend the day, do you mean?' was Snowdon's troubled question.

'No, she has left the house. She went yesterday, in the afternoon. It
was very sudden, the landlady says, and she doesn't know where she's
gone to.'

Jane had no understanding of what her information implied; seeing that
it was received as grave news, she stood regarding her grandfather
anxiously. Though Clara had passed out of her world since those first
days of illness, Jane held her in a memory which knew no motive of
retention so strong as gratitude. The thought of harm or sorrow coming
upon her protector had a twofold painfulness. Instantly she divined
tha