id that they also were
crying. Whose eyes could have been dry after such a scene,--upon
hearing such words? "You had better go," said Mrs. Crawley. "I know
him so well. You had better go."

"Mrs. Crawley," he said whispering to her, "if I ever desert her, may
all that I love desert me! But will you help me?"

"You would want no help, were it not for this trouble."

"But you will help me?"

Then she paused for a moment, "I can do nothing," she said, "but what
he bids me."

"You will trust me, at any rate?" said the major.

"I do trust you," she replied. Then he went without saying a word
further to Mr. Crawley. As soon as he was gone, the wife went over to
her husband, and put her arm gently round his neck as he was sitting.
For a while the husband took no notice of his wife's caress, but sat
motionless, with his face still turned to the wall. Then she spoke
to him a word or two, telling him that their visitor was gone. "My
child!" he said. "My poor child! my darling! She has found grace in
this man's sight; but even of that has her father robbed her! The
Lord has visited upon the children the sins of the father, and will
do so to the third and fourth generation."

CHAPTER LXIV

The Tragedy in Hook Court

[Illustration]

Conway Dalrymple had hurried out of the room in Mrs. Broughton's house
in which he had been painting Jael and Sisera, thinking that it would
be better to meet an angry and perhaps tipsy husband on the stairs,
than it would be either to wait for him till he should make his way
into his wife's room, or to hide away from him with the view of
escaping altogether from so disagreeable an encounter. He had no fear
of the man. He did not think that there would be any violence,--nor,
as regarded himself, did he much care if there was to be violence.
But he felt that he was bound, as far as it might be possible, to
screen the poor woman from the ill effects of her husband's temper
and condition. He was, therefore, prepared to stop Broughton on the
stairs, and to use some force in arresting him on his way, should he
find the man to be really intoxicated. But he had not descended above
a stair or two before he was aware that the man below him, whose step
had been heard in the hall, was not intoxicated, and that he was not
Dobbs Broughton. It was Mr. Musselboro.

"It is you, is it?" said Conway. "I thought it was Broughton." Then
he looked into the man's face and saw that he was ashy pale. All