ere perfectly comfortable;
and when he's had his sleep out, and wakes up on his own account, he'll
be feeling a heap better."

The argument might have carried conviction, but on the instant the sound
of footsteps came to them from the room below. The subdued noise rose
regularly, as of one pacing to and fro.

"No, Soulsby, YOU come back to bed, and get YOUR sleep out. I'm going
downstairs. It's no good talking; I'm going."

Brother Soulsby offered no further opposition, either by talk or
demeanor, but returned contentedly to bed, pulling the comforter over
his ears, and falling into the slow, measured respiration of tranquil
slumber before his wife was ready to leave the room.

The dim, cold gray of twilight was sifting furtively through the lace
curtains of the front windows when Mrs. Soulsby, lamp in hand, entered
the parlor. She confronted a figure she would have hardly recognized.
The man seemed to have been submerged in a bath of disgrace. From the
crown of his head to the soles of his feet, everything about him was
altered, distorted, smeared with an intangible effect of shame. In the
vague gloom of the middle distance, between lamp and window, she noticed
that his shoulders were crouched, like those of some shambling tramp.
The frowsy shadows of a stubble beard lay on his jaw and throat. His
clothes were crumpled and hung awry; his boots were stained with mud.
The silk hat on the piano told its battered story with dumb eloquence.

Lifting the lamp, she moved forward a step, and threw its light upon his
face. A little groan sounded involuntarily upon her lips. Out of a mask
of unpleasant features, swollen with drink and weighted by the physical
craving for rest and sleep, there stared at her two bloodshot eyes,
shining with the wild light of hysteria. The effect of dishevelled hair,
relaxed muscles, and rough, half-bearded lower face lent to these eyes,
as she caught their first glance, an unnatural glare. The lamp shook
in her hand for an instant. Then, ashamed of herself, she held out her
other hand fearlessly to him.

"Tell me all about it, Theron," she said calmly, and with a soothing,
motherly intonation in her voice.

He did not take the hand she offered, but suddenly, with a wailing moan,
cast himself on his knees at her feet. He was so tall a man that the
movement could have no grace. He abased his head awkwardly, to bury
it among the folds of the skirts at her ankles. She stood still for a
moment,