s have claws, my girl.
There's not a pretty slight you ever put upon me, nor a pretty trick you
ever played me, nor a pretty insolence you ever showed me, that I won't
pay back a hundred-fold. What else did I marry you for? YOU, too!' he
said, with coarse contempt.

It might have softened him--indeed it might--to hear her turn a little
fragment of a song he used to say he liked; trying, with a heart so
full, to win him back.

'Oho!' he said, 'you're deaf, are you? You don't hear me, eh? So much
the better for you. I hate you. I hate myself, for having, been fool
enough to strap a pack upon my back for the pleasure of treading on it
whenever I choose. Why, things have opened to me, now, so that I might
marry almost where I liked. But I wouldn't; I'd keep single. I ought to
be single, among the friends I know. Instead of that, here I am, tied
like a log to you. Pah! Why do you show your pale face when I come home?
Am I never to forget you?'

'How late it is!' she said cheerfully, opening the shutter after an
interval of silence. 'Broad day, Jonas!'

'Broad day or black night, what do I care!' was the kind rejoinder.

'The night passed quickly, too. I don't mind sitting up, at all.'

'Sit up for me again, if you dare!' growled Jonas.

'I was reading,' she proceeded, 'all night long. I began when you went
out, and read till you came home again. The strangest story, Jonas! And
true, the book says. I'll tell it you to-morrow.'

'True, was it?' said Jonas, doggedly.

'So the book says.'

'Was there anything in it, about a man's being determined to conquer his
wife, break her spirit, bend her temper, crush all her humours like so
many nut-shells--kill her, for aught I know?' said Jonas.

'No. Not a word,' she answered quickly.

'Oh!' he returned. 'That'll be a true story though, before long; for all
the book says nothing about it. It's a lying book, I see. A fit book for
a lying reader. But you're deaf. I forgot that.'

There was another interval of silence; and the boy was stealing away,
when he heard her footstep on the floor, and stopped. She went up to
him, as it seemed, and spoke lovingly; saying that she would defer to
him in everything and would consult his wishes and obey them, and they
might be very happy if he would be gentle with her. He answered with an
imprecation, and--

Not with a blow? Yes. Stern truth against the base-souled villain; with
a blow.

No angry cries; no loud reproaches. Even her