ecessary to assume that loud and cheery
laugh.

On this occasion he was apparently well in health when he got home;
but both Lady Scatcherd and Mr Winterbones found him more than
ordinarily cross. He made an affectation at sitting very hard to
business, and even talked of going abroad to look at some of his
foreign contracts. But even Winterbones found that his patron did not
work as he had been wont to do; and at last, with some misgivings, he
told Lady Scatcherd that he feared that everything was not right.

"He's always at it, my lady, always," said Mr Winterbones.

"Is he?" said Lady Scatcherd, well understanding what Mr
Winterbones's allusion meant.

"Always, my lady. I never saw nothing like it. Now, there's me--I can
always go my half-hour when I've had my drop; but he, why, he don't
go ten minutes, not now."

This was not cheerful to Lady Scatcherd; but what was the poor woman
to do? When she spoke to him on any subject he only snarled at her;
and now that the heavy fit was on him, she did not dare even to
mention the subject of his drinking. She had never known him so
savage in his humour as he was now, so bearish in his habits, so
little inclined to humanity, so determined to rush headlong down,
with his head between his legs, into the bottomless abyss.

She thought of sending for Dr Thorne; but she did not know under what
guise to send for him,--whether as doctor or as friend: under neither
would he now be welcome; and she well knew that Sir Roger was not the
man to accept in good part either a doctor or a friend who might be
unwelcome. She knew that this husband of hers, this man who, with
all his faults, was the best of her friends, whom of all she loved
best--she knew that he was killing himself, and yet she could do
nothing. Sir Roger was his own master, and if kill himself he would,
kill himself he must.

And kill himself he did. Not indeed by one sudden blow. He did not
take one huge dose of his consuming poison and then fall dead upon
the floor. It would perhaps have been better for himself, and better
for those around him, had he done so. No; the doctors had time to
congregate around his bed; Lady Scatcherd was allowed a period of
nurse-tending; the sick man was able to say his last few words and
bid adieu to his portion of the lower world with dying decency. As
these last words will have some lasting effect upon the surviving
personages of our story, the reader must be content to stand for a