's that a-distarbin' o' me, as ha'n't had a night's rest for a
week, at this time o' night?" she demanded sharply.

"It's me; Depper," the man's voice answered, whisperingly. "Le' me in,
Dinah. I daren't be alone along of 'er no longer. I ha' only got you,
Dinah, now my old woman's gone! Le' me in!"

"You're a rum un ter call yerself a man and a husban'--you are!" Dinah
Brome ejaculated; but she came downstairs and opened her door.

CLOMAYNE'S CLERK

Into the stinging sleet and rain-laden winds of the March morning there
emerged from the door of a physician in Harley Street a boy of
seventeen. He was slightly built, with stooping shoulders, and, meagre
of proportions as he was, was protected from the cruel weather by an
overcoat much too small. As he faced the biting wind, and "all the
vapoury turbulence of heaven," the dusky pallor of his skin took on a
bluey tinge, he shivered and trembled in the grim grasp of the storm.

A few yards from the door a child, dressed in a long, cheap mackintosh,
and carrying within a strap slung over her shoulder a collection of
school books and papers, awaited him.

Into the lustrous dark eyes of the youth she looked, asking with her
anxious blue ones a question she did not put in words; for a minute he
did not answer.

"Come under my umbrella," she said, as they walked on together. "And
turn up the collar of your coat, Peter. Didn't he have a fire for you?"
she asked, with a distrustful glance in the direction of that great
physician whose portals the youth had just quitted.

"There was a roaring fire," Peter said. "It isn't the cold so
much--it's the inside of me that's shivering. Cicely, it's going to be
no use. He doesn't mean to pass me."

Cicely, a fairly well-grown girl of fourteen, with straight thin legs,
straight, thick-hanging, dark hair, a straight, serious face, came to a
stop on the wet pavement. Answering to a tug upon his coat-sleeve, the
youth stopped too.

"He must!" she said. "You shouldn't have left him. You should have
_made_ him, Peter." The tears came into her eyes and her lip shook.
"Oh, Peter, he will--he will!"

"He spotted that place on my throat," Peter said, with dejection.

"I told you to tie a handkerchief over it!"

"Handkerchief? I should think I did! He told me three times before I
took it off. He wouldn't have so much as a rag on me. 'What's this?'
says he. 'A little trouble I had a year or so ago, with a gland that
swelled,' sa