he looked as though he had realized it with sufficient
clearness. He was lean and sick and pale, and seemed to be ten years
older than when Mr. Prendergast had last seen him. He was wrapped in
an old dressing-gown, and had a night-cap on his head, and coughed
violently before he got himself into his chair. It is hard for any
tame domestic animal to know through what fire and water a poor fox
is driven as it is hunted from hole to hole and covert to covert. It
is a wonderful fact, but no less a fact, that no men work so hard
and work for so little pay as scoundrels who strive to live without
any work at all, and to feed on the sweat of other men's brows. Poor
Matthew Mollett had suffered dire misfortune, had encountered very
hard lines, betwixt that day on which he stole away from the Kanturk
Hotel in South Main Street, Cork, and that other day on which he
presented himself, cold and hungry and almost sick to death, at the
door of his wife's house in Spinny Lane, St. Botolph's in the East.

He never showed himself there unless when hard pressed indeed, and
then he would skulk in, seeking for shelter and food, and pleading
with bated voice his husband right to assistance and comfort. Nor was
his plea ever denied him.

On this occasion he had arrived in very bad plight indeed: he had
brought away from Cork nothing but what he could carry on his body,
and had been forced to pawn what he could pawn in order that he might
subsist And then he had been taken with ague, and with the fit strong
on him had crawled away to Spinny Lane, and had there been nursed by
the mother and daughter whom he had ill used, deserted, and betrayed.
"When the devil was sick the devil a monk would be;" and now his
wife, credulous as all women are in such matters, believed the
devil's protestations. A time may perhaps come when even-- But
stop!--or I may chance to tread on the corns of orthodoxy. What I
mean to insinuate is this; that it was on the cards that Mr. Mollett
would now at last turn over a new leaf.

"How do you do, Mr. Mollett?" said Mr. Prendergast. "I am sorry to
see you looking so poorly."

"Yes, sir. I am poorly enough certainly. I have been very ill since
I last had the pleasure of seeing you, sir."

"Ah, yes, that was at Castle Richmond; was it not? Well, you have
done the best thing that a man can do; you have come home to your
wife and family now that you are ill and require their attendance."

Mr. Mollett looked up at him