still. The Vicar's friend was
a missionary bishop, and a High Churchman; Isaac, as a staunch Dissenter
by conviction and inheritance, thought ill both of bishops and
Ritualists. Nevertheless he had been touched; he had been fired. Deep,
though often perplexed instincts in his own heart had responded to the
spiritual passion of the speaker. The religious atmosphere had stolen
about him, melting and subduing.

And the first effect of it had been to quicken suddenly his domestic
conscience; to make him think painfully of Bessie and the children as he
climbed the hill.

Was his wife going the way of his son? And he, sitting day after day
like a dumb dog, instead of striving with her!

He made up his mind hurriedly.

'Bessie,' he said, stooping to her and speaking in a strange voice,
'Bessie, had yer been to Dawson's?'

Dawson was the landlord of the 'Spotted Deer.'

Bessie was long in answering. At last she said, almost inaudibly, 'Yes.'

She fully understood what he had meant by the question, and she wondered
whether he would fall into one of his rages and beat her.

Instead his hand sought clumsily for hers.

'Bessie, yer shouldn't; yer mustn't do it no more; it'll make a bad
woman of yer. I know as I'm not good to live with; I don't make things
pleasant to yer; but I've been thinkin; I'll try if yo'll try.'

Bessie burst into tears. It seemed as though her life were breaking
within her. Never since their early married days had he spoken to her
like this. And she was in such piteous need of comfort; of some strong
hand to help her out of the black pit in which she lay. The wild impulse
crossed her to sit up and tell him--to throw it all on Timothy, to show
him the cupboard and the box. Should she tell him; brave it all now that
he was like this? Between them they might find a way--make it good.

Then the thought of the man in the public-house, of the half-crowns, a
host of confused and guilty memories, swept upon her. How could she ever
get herself out of it? Her heart beat so that it seemed a live creature
strangling and silencing her. She was still fighting with her tears and
her terror when she heard Isaac say:

'I know yer'll try, and I'll help yer. I'll be a better husband to yer,
I swear I will. Give us a kiss, old woman.'

She turned her face, sobbing, and he kissed her cheek.

Then she heard him say in another tone:

'An I got a bit o' news down at the club as will liven yer up. Parkinson
was th