Mrs. Kilquhanity could not get the Cure to listen to her, but she
was more successful elsewhere. One day she came to get Kilquhanity's
pension, which was sent every three months through M. Garon, the
Avocat. After she had handed over the receipt prepared beforehand by
Kilquhanity, she replied to M. Garon's inquiry concerning her husband in
these words: "Misther Garon, sir, such a man it is--enough to break the
heart of anny woman. And the timper of him--Misther Garon, the timper of
him's that awful, awful! No conshideration, and that ugly-hearted, got
whin a soldier b'y! The things he does--my, my, the things he does!" She
threw up her hands with an air of distraction.

"Well, and what does he do, Madame?" asked the Avocat simply.

"An' what he says, too--the awful of it! Ah, the bad sour heart in him!
What's he lyin' in his bed for now--an' the New Year comin' on, whin
we ought to be praisin' God an' enjoyin' each other's company in this
blessed wurruld? What's he lying betune the quilts now fur, but by token
of the bad heart in him! It's a wicked could he has, an' how did he come
by it? I'll tell ye, Misther Garon. So wild was he, yesterday it was
a week, so black mad wid somethin' I'd said to him and somethin' that
shlipped from me hand at his head, that he turns his back on me, throws
opin the dure, shteps out into the shnow, and shtandin' there alone,
he curses the wide wurruld--oh, dear Misther Garon, he cursed the wide
wurruld, shtandin' there in the snow! God forgive the black heart of
him, shtandin' out there cursin' the wide wurruld!"

The Avocat looked at the Sergeant's wife musingly, the fingers of his
hands tapping together, but he did not speak: he was becoming wiser all
in a moment as to the ways of women.

"An' now he's in bed, the shtrappin' blasphemer, fur the could he got
shtandin' there in the snow cursin' the wide wurruld. Ah, Misther Garon,
pity a poor woman that has to live wid the loikes o' that!"

The Avocat still did not speak. He turned his face away and looked out
of the window, where his eyes could see the little house on the hill,
which to-day had the Union Jack flying in honour of some battle or
victory, dear to Kilquhanity's heart. It looked peaceful enough, the
little house lying there in the waste of snow, banked up with earth, and
sheltered on the northwest by a little grove of pines. At last M. Garon
rose, and lifting himself up and down on his toes as if about to deliver
a le