tood so long silent by the bed, which creaked as Lamb sat up, that the
man's agony of morbid thirst caught from his silence a little hope, and
he said, "Now you will, I know."

Rivers made no direct answer. Was it hopeless? He tried to read the
face--the too thin straight nose, white between dusky red cheeks, the
projecting lower lip, and the lip above it long, the eyes small, red, and
eagerly attentive. This was not the time for reason. He said, "I should
be your worst enemy, Peter. Every one has been good to you; over and over
the Squire has saved you from jail. Mrs. Penhallow asked me to help you.
Try to bear what your sin has brought on you, oh! do try. Pray God for
help to bear it patiently."

"I'm in hell. What's the use of praying in hell? Get me whisky and I'll
pray."

Rivers felt himself to be at the end of his resources, and that the
enfeebled mind was incapable of response to any appeal to head or heart.
"I will come again," he said. "Good-bye."

"Oh, damn everybody," muttered Peter.

Rivers went out and sent Billy up to take charge. Lamb was still sitting
up in bed when Billy returned. The simple fellow poured out in brief
sentences small bits of what he had seen at the street door.

"Oh, shut up," said Peter. "The doctor says I'll feel better if I'm
shaved--ain't been shaved these three weeks. Doctor wants you to go and
get Josiah to come and fix me up to-night. You tell him it's the doctor's
orders. Don't you be gone long. I'm kind of lonely."

"All right," said Billy, in the cheerful way which made him a favourite
despite his disinclination for steady work.

"Now, don't be gone long. I need a good shave, Billy."

"Guess you do--way you look you wouldn't fetch five cents at one of them
rummage-sales. Ain't had but one in four years."

"Oh, get out, Billy." Once rid of his guard he tried in vain to stand up
and fell back cursing.

The order from the doctor was to be obeyed. "Guess he's too shaky to
shave himself," said Josiah. "I'll come about half-past eight."

As Josiah walked to the far end of the village, he thought in his simple
way of his last three years. After much wandering and fear of being
traced, he had been used at the stables by Penhallow. That he had been a
slave was suspected, but that troubled no one in Westways. He had long
felt at ease and safe. He lived alone, a man of some forty years, cooked
for himself, and had in the county bank a small amount of carefully saved
earning