and modest."

"Oh, you've grown very modest all at once, you have," sneered Gurdon,
angrily. "It's all make believe; and if you don't do as I tell you,
I'll pay you out in a way as'll startle you! Come down this minute," he
hissed, "and do as I tell you! I will speak to you!"

"You won't do nothing of the kind," said Jane, angrily; "you've been
drinking again, or you wouldn't have come here to ask such a thing, nor
you wouldn't have thrown them nasty, sneering, jeering words at one that
no one can say a word against, so there, now. And now, good night, Mr
Gurdon," she said, frigidly; and he heard the sash begin to close.

"Oh, Jane--Jane, darling! please--please stop, only a minute," he
whined, for he knew that he had played a false card, and that it was
time to withdraw it. "Don't be hard on a poor fellow as is fallen, and
who's put out of temper by his troubles. I didn't think that you'd turn
your back upon me--I didn't, indeed."

John Gurdon paused, and gave vent to a snuffle, and something that was
either a hiccup or a sob. Jane Barker, too, paused in her act of
closing the window, for somehow John Gurdon had wound his way so tightly
round her soft heart, that she was ready to strike him one moment, and
to go down on her knees and beg forgiveness the next.

"It's very hard," sobbed Gurdon, in maudlin tones. "Even she has turned
upon me now, even to closing the window, and denying me a hearing--I
didn't think it of her. A woman that I've worshipped almost--a woman as
I'd have died for a dozen times over; but it isn't in her nature."

Gurdon stopped and listened attentively.

"She isn't a bad one at heart," he continued, in the same whining,
lachrymose tones, "but she's been set against me, and it's all over now;
and I may as well make an end of myself as try and live. I did think as
she'd have come down to listen to me; but no, and it's all over. The
whole world now has shut its doors and windows in my face!"

"Oh, John--John, pray, pray don't talk so!" sobbed Jane.

"What! not gone?" he exclaimed, in mock ecstasy.

"No, no! How could you think I should be so cruel?"

"Oh, I don't know," he whined. "But pray, pray come down: I want to
have a few words about what's to be done. I don't want to take a
public-house now, Jane, but to go into the grocery and baking; and
there's a chance before me, if I could only point it out."

"Well, tell me now," sobbed Jane.

"No; how can I?" said Gurdon--"I