nd looked up, and saw Catherine gazing at him.

Their eyes met for an instant, and Catherine turned away, burning red,
and looking as if she had been caught in the commission of a crime.

A kind of blank terror seized upon old Hayes's soul: a horrible icy
fear, and presentiment of coming evil; and yet the woman had but looked
at him. He thought rapidly over the occurrences of the last night, the
quarrel, and the end of it. He had often struck her before when angry,
and heaped all kinds of bitter words upon her; but, in the morning, she
bore no malice, and the previous quarrel was forgotten, or, at least,
passed over. Why should the last night's dispute not have the same end?
Hayes calculated all this, and tried to smile.

"I hope we're friends, Cat?" said he. "You know I was in liquor last
night, and sadly put out by the loss of that fifty pound. They'll ruin
me, dear--I know they will."

Mrs. Hayes did not answer.

"I should like to see the country again, dear," said he, in his most
wheedling way. "I've a mind, do you know, to call in all our money? It's
you who've made every farthing of it, that's sure; and it's a matter of
two thousand pound by this time. Suppose we go into Warwickshire, Cat,
and buy a farm, and live genteel. Shouldn't you like to live a lady in
your own county again? How they'd stare at Birmingham! hey, Cat?"

And with this Mr. Hayes made a motion as if he would seize his wife's
hand, but she flung his back again.

"Coward!" said she, "you want liquor to give you courage, and then
you've only heart enough to strike women."

"It was only in self-defence, my dear," said Hayes, whose courage had
all gone. "You tried, you know, to--to--"

"To STAB you, and I wish I had!" said Mrs. Hayes, setting her teeth, and
glaring at him like a demon; and so saying she sprung out of bed. There
was a great stain of blood on her pillow. "Look at it," said she. "That
blood's of your shedding!" and at this Hayes fairly began to weep, so
utterly downcast and frightened was the miserable man. The wretch's
tears only inspired his wife with a still greater rage and loathing; she
cared not so much for the blow, but she hated the man: the man to
whom she was tied for ever--for ever! The bar between her and wealth,
happiness, love, rank perhaps. "If I were free," thought Mrs. Hayes
(the thought had been sitting at her pillow all night, and whispering
ceaselessly into her ear)--, "If I were free, Max would marry me; I