as I said before," said his wife.

"I'd go this minute," said Mr. Hatchard, "but I know what it 'ud be: in
three or four days you'd be coming and begging me to take you back
again."

"You try me," said Mrs. Hatchard, with a hard laugh. "I can keep myself.
You leave me the furniture--most of it is mine--and I sha'n't worry you
again."

"Mind!" said Mr. Hatchard, raising his hand with great solemnity. "If I
go, I never come back again."

"I'll take care of that," said his wife, equably. "You are far more
likely to ask to come back than I am."

Mr. Hatchard stood for some time in deep thought, and then, spurred on by
a short, contemptuous laugh from his wife, went to the small passage and,
putting on his overcoat and hat, stood in the parlor doorway regarding
her.

"I've a good mind to take you at your word," he said, at last.

"Good-night," said his wife, briskly. "If you send me your address, I'll
send your things on to you. There's no need for you to call about them."

Hardly realizing the seriousness of the step, Mr. Hatchard closed the
front door behind him with a bang, and then discovered that it was
raining. Too proud to return for his umbrella, he turned up his
coat-collar and, thrusting his hands in his pockets, walked slowly down
the desolate little street. By the time he had walked a dozen yards he
began to think that he might as well have waited until the morning;
before he had walked fifty he was certain of it.

He passed the night at a coffee-house, and rose so early in the morning
that the proprietor took it as a personal affront, and advised him to get
his breakfast elsewhere. It was the longest day in Mr. Hatchard's
experience, and, securing modest lodgings that evening, he overslept
himself and was late at the warehouse next morning for the first time in
ten years.

His personal effects arrived next day, but no letter came from his wife,
and one which he wrote concerning a pair of missing garments received no
reply. He wrote again, referring to them in laudatory terms, and got a
brief reply to the effect that they had been exchanged in part payment on
a pair of valuable pink vases, the pieces of which he could have by
paying the carriage.

In six weeks Mr. Hatchard changed his lodgings twice. A lack of those
home comforts which he had taken as a matter of course during his married
life was a source of much tribulation, and it was clear that his weekly
bills were compiled by a clev