uch
louder one. Clarence stood before the fire, slowly revolving on one
heel. His clothes steamed briskly.

"It isn't true," said Katie. She rose and came uncertainly towards her
brother, half threatening, half imploring.

"All right," said he, strong in his advantage. "Then I shan't tell
either of you anything more."

Mrs. Batch through her tears called Katie a bad girl, and Clarence a bad
boy.

"Where did you get THEM?" asked Clarence, pointing to the ear-rings worn
by his sister.

"HE gave me them," said Katie. Clarence curbed the brotherly intention
of telling her she looked "a sight" in them.

She stood staring into vacancy. "He didn't love HER," she murmured.
"That was all over. I'll vow he didn't love HER."

"Who d'you mean by her?" asked Clarence.

"That Miss Dobson that's been here."

"What's her other name?"

"Zuleika," Katie enunciated with bitterest abhorrence.

"Well, then, he jolly well did love her. That's the name he called out
just before he threw himself in. 'Zuleika!'--like that," added the boy,
with a most infelicitous attempt to reproduce the Duke's manner.

Katie had shut her eyes, and clenched her hands.

"He hated her. He told me so," she said.

"I was always a mother to him," sobbed Mrs. Batch, rocking to and fro on
a chair in a corner. "Why didn't he come to me in his trouble?"

"He kissed me," said Katie, as in a trance. "No other man shall ever do
that."

"He did?" exclaimed Clarence. "And you let him?"

"You wretched little whipper-snapper!" flashed Katie.

"Oh, I am, am I?" shouted Clarence, squaring up to his sister. "Say that
again, will you?"

There is no doubt that Katie would have said it again, had not her
mother closed the scene with a prolonged wail of censure.

"You ought to be thinking of ME, you wicked girl," said Mrs. Batch.
Katie went across, and laid a gentle hand on her mother's shoulder.
This, however, did but evoke a fresh flood of tears. Mrs. Batch had a
keen sense of the deportment owed to tragedy. Katie, by bickering with
Clarence, had thrown away the advantage she had gained by fainting. Mrs.
Batch was not going to let her retrieve it by shining as a consoler.
I hasten to add that this resolve was only sub-conscious in the good
woman. Her grief was perfectly sincere. And it was not the less so
because with it was mingled a certain joy in the greatness of the
calamity. She came of good sound peasant stock. Abiding in her was the
spirit of those