ou into his charge. But I don't want to do this for my poor
sister's sake and the family's sake. But now I've made up my mind--come
what may, disgrace or no disgrace, if you show your face amongst any of
us again, the constable shall have you, and you shall get your deserts.
We've got a home for our sister at the old place, and Amos has got a
home for the children. Now if, after I've set you free, you turn up
anywhere near us or the children, we'll make no more bones of the
matter; you shall get your deserts, and these will be the deserts of a
mean, cowardly, rascally wife-beater, to say the best of you."

Not a word of reply did the guilty man make to this speech. He writhed
in his chair, and looked utterly humbled and crushed.

When Walter--who had now, with the tacit consent of Amos, taken the
management of matters into his own hands--had examined the pistols,
which proved to be unloaded, he approached his brother-in-law once more,
and said, with less excitement, "Now, Mr Orlando Vivian, I am going to
release you, and you will have the goodness to take yourself out of this
town before you are an hour older, else you will have to take the
consequences." Having said this, he proceeded to unfasten the cord
which bound the degraded and spirit-broken wretch. When this had been
accomplished, the baffled stroller rose, and, with head hanging down,
and without a word uttered, left the house.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

BACK TO THE OLD HOME AGAIN.

"I shall remain here with poor Julia," said Amos to his brother, when
their unhappy sister, completely overcome by the terrible scene she had
just witnessed, had retired to her bedroom, where she was lovingly
tended by her kind landlady.

"And what is the next move for me?" asked Walter.

"Well," replied Amos, "you have done your part most nobly, and I am so
thankful now that you came. Not that I think that wretched man would
really have harmed me. He just wanted to frighten the money out of me;
but I believe, on finding me firm, and not to be frightened, he would
have dropped his pistol, and made some shuffling attempt to turn the
matter into a joke, and would then have tried to wheedle the money out
of me, when he saw that a show of violence would not do. Still, I am
truly glad that you were here, and that things have turned out as they
have done. I feel sure now that you have thoroughly humbled this
unprincipled scoundrel, and that he has slunk away like a whipped ho