woman
of easy virtue, and at the service of this man.

"Very well," replied Walker with chagrined anger. "Please yourself. But
let me tell you that you'll maybe no' ay be so high and mighty; you'll
maybe be dam'd glad yet of the chance that I have given you."

"No, no," protested Mrs. Sinclair. "Go away--"

"Look here, Nellie," he said, his voice changing to a low pleading tone,
"you're in a hole. You must be. Be a sensible woman, and you'll never
need to be so ill-grippet again. I can put Geordie in a position that
he'll make any amount of money as soon as he is able to start. You are
not a bit better than anyone else, and for the sake of your bairns you
should be sensible. And forby," he went on, as if now more sure of his
ground, "what the hell's wrang in it? It's no' what folk do that is
wrong. It's in being found out. Now come away and be sensible. You ken
what is wanted, and you ken that I can make you well off for it."

"No, by heavens," she cried, now tingling with anger at the insult.
"Never! Get out of this, you brute! If Geordie Sinclair had been able
this nicht, I'd have got him to deal with you. Get out of here, or I'll
cleave your rotten body, and let out your rotten heart." And she turned
in, and closed and bolted the door, leaving Walker fuming with anger at
the repulse of his advances. Nellie Sinclair had never felt so outraged
in all her life before. She was trembling with anger at the insult of
his proposals. She paced the floor in her stockinged feet, as if a wild
spirit were raging within her demanding release; then finally she flung
herself into the "big chair," disgust and anger in her heart, and for
the second time that night burst into a passionate fit of weeping, which
seemed to shake her body almost asunder. For a long time she sat thus,
sobbing, her whole being burning with indignation, and her mind in a
fury of disgust and rebellion.

Then there was a faint stirring in the bed where the children slept, and
a little boy's form began to crawl from amongst the rough bedclothes,
his eyes gazing in amazement at the bowed figure of his mother. She was
crying, he concluded, for her shoulders were heaving and it must be
something very bad that made his beautiful mother cry like this. He
crept across the bare wooden floor, his bare sturdy legs showing beneath
the short and meager shirt, and was soon at her side.

"What's wrang wi' you, mother?" he asked, as he put his soft little
hand upon her