Georgy laid down her work and took out her handkerchief. She was one of
those women who take refuge in tears when they find themselves at a
disadvantage. Tears had always melted honest Tom, was his wrath never
so dire, and tears would no doubt subdue Philip Sheldon.

But Georgy had to discover that the dentist was made of a stuff very
different from that softer clay which composed the rollicking
good-tempered farmer. Mr. Sheldon watched her tears with the
cold-blooded deliberation of a scientific experimentalist. He was glad
to find that he could make her cry. She was a necessary instrument in
the working out of certain plans that he had made for himself, and he
was anxious to discover whether she was likely to be a plastic
instrument. He knew that her love for him had never been worth much at
its best, and that the poor little flickering flame had been utterly
extinguished by nine years of commonplace domesticity and petty
jealousy. But his purpose was one that would be served as well by her
fear as by her love, and he had set himself to-night to gauge his power
in relation to this poor weak creature.

"It's very unkind of you to say such dreadful things, Mr. Sheldon," she
whimpered presently; "you know very well that my marriage with Tom was
pa's doing, and not mine. I'm sure if I'd known how he would stay out
night after night, and come home in such dreadful states time after
time, I never would have consented to marry him."

"Wouldn't you?--O yes, you would. If you were a widow to-morrow, and
free to marry again, you would choose just such another man as Tom--a
man who laughs loud, and pays flourishing compliments, and drives a gig
with a high-stepping horse. That's the sort of man women like, and
that's the sort of man you'd marry."

"I'm sure I shouldn't marry at all," answered Mrs. Halliday, in a voice
that was broken by little gasping sobs. "I have seen enough of the
misery of married life. But I don't want Tom to die, unkind as he is to
me. People are always saying that he won't make old bones--how horrid
it is to talk of a person's bones!--and I'm sure I sometimes make
myself wretched about him, as he knows, though he doesn't thank me for
it."

And here Mrs Halliday's sobs got the better of her utterance, and Mr.
Sheldon was fain to say something of a consolatory nature.

"Come, come," he said, "I won't tease you any more. That's against the
laws of hospitality, isn't it?--only there are some things wh