ry, if I've had a drop!"

He turned from her and rang the bell.

"Where did your mistress get the brandy she has had to-day?" he asked
of the pert, untidy-looking maid-of-all-work who appeared.

"Where'd she get it? Out of the bottle, of course. I fetched it for her
away from the grocer's, right enough," the servant said, with an
impudent face and a tossed-up head.

"I thought I had given you orders never to fetch your mistress anything
of the sort?"

"An' the missus she give me orders to fetch it," the girl said. "'Ow do
I know which I'm to mind, between ye? An' me shut up with 'er all the
day, an' 'er a-badgerin'----"

"Take the tea-things. That will do for the present. Go!" he said.

He walked to the foot of the sofa, and looked long at the huge,
unlovely bulk, once the admired form of his handsome wife, that lay
there.

"You disgrace!" he said.

She whimpered afresh, her mouth shaking, the tears running down her
cheeks unrestrained, like those of a child.

"There's a way to speak to a poor, suffering wife!" she whined. "And my
head like splitting open! You might feel for me a little, Horry. Look
at my poor arm!" With her able hand she moved the disabled one towards
him. "It's quite numb. Rub it, Horry," she pleaded, looking weepingly
up at him. "It's numb, yet it aches right up into my throat. And my
poor tongue--poor wifey's tongue--is like fire! Look at it, hubby."

She opened the tremulous mouth, the great, parched tongue lolled out.

He looked at her, not stirring, with hard eyes.

"You disgrace!" he said again.

"Aren't you a disgrace to say so, then?" she whimpered. "Who'd believe
you were my husband, calling me disgraces, and things? No one would
think there was any affection between us, going on like that. And me
with one side of me useless, and a fatty heart, as the doctor told me
plainly, and said I was to take the greatest care. And who should take
care of me if my own husband doesn't? And you stand there glaring at
me, and not a kind word to throw at me! And haven't I always been a
true and loving wife to you?"

He looked at her deliberately, with loathing in his eyes.

"You have been the curse of my life!" he said.

Then he left her.

* * * * *

In half an hour the pert maid-of-all-work came in. She was in walking
costume, a string of pearls about her bare throat, a hat-box in her
hand.

"This 'ere's my luggige," she explained. "You can