ing from the door Mrs. Gourlay rose, with an appealing
cry of "_John!_" But Gourlay put his eye on her, and she sank into her
chair, staring up at him in terror. The strings of the tawdry cap she
wore seemed to choke her, and she unfastened them with nervous fingers,
fumbling long beneath her lifted chin to get them loose. She did not
remove the cap, but let the strings dangle by her jaw. The silly bits of
cloth waggling and quivering, as she turned her head repeatedly from son
to husband and from husband to son, added to her air of helplessness and
inefficiency. Once she whispered with ghastly intensity, "_God have
mercy!_"

For a length of time there was a loaded silence.

Gourlay went up to the hearth, and looked down on his son from near at
hand. John shrank down in his greatcoat. A reek of alcohol rose from
around him. Janet whimpered.

But when Gourlay spoke it was with deadly quietude. The moan was in his
voice. So great was his controlled wrath that he drew in great,
shivering breastfuls of air between the words, as if for strength to
utter them; and they quavered forth on it again. He seemed weakened by
his own rage.

"Ay, man!" he breathed.... "Ye've won hame, I observe!... Dee-ee-ar
me!... Im-phm!"

The contrast between the lowness of his voice and his steady, breathing
anger that possessed the air (they felt it coming as on waves) was
demoniac, appalling.

John could not speak; he was paralyzed by fear. To have this vast
hostile force touch him, yet be still, struck him dumb. Why did his
father not break out on him at once? What did he mean? What was he going
to do? The jamb of the fireplace cut his right shoulder as he cowered
into it, to get away as far as he could.

"I'm saying ... ye've won hame!" quivered Gourlay in a deadly slowness,
and his eyes never left his son.

And still the son made no reply. In the silence the ticking of the big
clock seemed to fill their world. They were conscious of nothing else.
It smote the ear.

"Ay," John gulped at last from a throat that felt closing. The answer
seemed dragged out of him by the insistent silence.

"Just so-a!" breathed his father, and his eyes opened in wide flame. He
heaved with the great breath he drew.... "Im-phm!" he drawled.

He went through to the scullery at the back of the kitchen to wash his
hands. Through the open door Janet and her mother--looking at each other
with affrighted eyes--could hear him sneering at intervals, "Ay,
man