due time given way to anger, and anger in its turn to
anxiety again.

In a state of mind compounded of these wearing emotions, she had set out
in the early morning to find out what had become of him; if he was
sleeping off a drunken debauch at Peter Mauger's, to give them both a
vigorous piece of her mind; if he was not there, to find out where he
was; in any case to vent on some one the pent-up feelings of the night.

Vigorous hammering on Peter Mauger's door produced first his old
housekeeper, and presently himself, heavy-eyed, dull-witted, and in
flagrant dishabille, since Mrs. Guille had but a moment ago shaken him
out of the sleep of those who drink not wisely over-night, with the
information that a crazy woman wanted him at the door.

"Where's Tom?" demanded Julie, ready to empty the vials of her wrath on
the delinquent as soon as he was produced.

But Peter's manner at once dissipated that expectation.

"Tom?" he said vaguely, and gazed at her with a bovine stupidity that
jarred her strained nerves like a blow.

"Yes, Tom--my husband, fool! Where is he?" she asked sharply.

"Where is he?" scratching his tousled head to quicken his wits. "I d'n
know."

"You don't know? What did you do with him last night, you drunken
fool?"--by this time the neighbours had come out to learn the news.

Peter gaped at her in astonishment, his muddled wits and aching head
beginning dimly to realize that something was wrong.

"Tom left here ... last night ... t'go home," he nodded emphatically.

"Well, he never got home," snapped Julie. "And you'd best get your
clothes on and help me find him. You were both as drunk as pigs, I
suppose. If he's lying dead in a ditch it's you that'll have the blame."

"Aw now, Julie!"

"Don't Julie me, you fool! Get dressed and do something."

"I'll come. You wait," and he went inside, and put his head into a basin
of water, and threw on his clothes, and came out presently looking
anxious and disturbed now that his sluggish brain had begun to work.

"Where you been looking?" he asked.

"Nowhere. I expected to find him here."

"We had a glass or two and then he started off home. He could walk all
right.... Did you.... You didn't see anything wrong ... anything ... at
the Coupee?" he asked, with a quick anxious look at her.

"No, I didn't. What do you mean? Oh, mon Dieu!" and she started down the
road at a run, with Peter lumbering after her and the neighbours in a
buzzing tail behind