tempt you. No?--What train did you come by?'

He talked ceaselessly. There was a spot of red in the midst of each of
his sallow cheeks, and his eyes gleamed with excitement. On leaving the
mill a sudden thirst had come upon him, and he had quenched it with a
glass of spirits at the first public-house he passed. Perhaps that had
some part in his elation.

Emily almost immediately withdrew and went up to her bedroom. Here she
sat alone for more than an hour, in fear lest her mother should come to
the door. Then she heard the gate open, and, looking from the window,
saw her father and his friend pass into the road and walk away together,
the former still talking in an excited way. A minute or two later came
the knock which she dreaded. She opened the door, and her mother
entered.

'Emily, did you ever know your father so strange?' Mrs. Hood asked, in a
tone of genuine alarm. She had sunk upon a chair, and looked to the girl
as if overcome with physical weakness. 'What can it all mean? When I
asked him why he had told that story about the money, he only
laughed--said it was a joke, and he'd explain it all before long. I
can't think where the money came from! And now he's gone to pay that
man's fare to London, and no doubt to lend him more money too.'

Emily made no reply. She stood near the window, and looked out at the
clouds which were breaking after a brief shower.

'Wherever the money may have come from,' pursued her mother, 'it's cruel
that it should go in this way. We never wanted it worse than we do now.
It's my belief he's borrowed it himself; a nice thing to borrow for
one's own needs, and then throw it away on such a good-for-nothing as
that.'

Emily turned and put a question quietly.

'Are you in more than usual need of money?'

'Well, my dear, you know I always try to say as little about such things
as I can, but now your father's been and borrowed--as of course he must
have done--there's no choice but to tell you. The house at Barnhill's
going to be empty at the end of the quarter, and our rent here's going
to be raised, and, all things coming together, we've had a good deal to
make us anxious. It's just like your father--wanting to make me believe
that things are better than they really are; it always was his way, and
what's the good of it I never could see. Of course he means it well, but
he'd far better have been open about it, and have told me what he was
going to do.'

Emily was shaken with agit