n John, and we'll gang
through his faither's desk. There may be something gude amang his
papers. There may be something gude!" she gabbled nervously; "yes, there
may be something gude! In the desk--in the desk--there may be something
gude in the desk!"

John staggered into the kitchen five minutes later. Halfway to the table
where his mother sat he reeled and fell over on a chair, where he lay
with an ashen face, his eyes mere slits in his head, the upturned whites
showing through. They brought him whisky, and he drank and was
recovered. And then they went through to the parlour, and opened the
great desk that stood in the corner. It was the first time they had ever
dared to raise its lid. John took up a letter lying loosely on the top
of the other papers, and after a hasty glance, "This settles it!" said
he. It was the note from Gourlay's banker, warning him that his account
was overdrawn.

"God help us!" cried Mrs. Gourlay, and Janet began to whimper. John
slipped out of the room. He was still in his stocking-feet, and the
women, dazed by this sudden and appalling news, were scarcely aware of
his departure.

He passed through the kitchen, and stood on the step of the back door,
looking out on the quiet little paved yard. Everything there was
remarkably still and bright. It was an early spring that year, and the
hot March sun beat down on him, paining his bleared and puffy eyes. The
contrast between his own lump of a body, drink-dazed, dull-throbbing,
and the warm, bright day came in on him with a sudden sinking of the
heart, a sense of degradation and personal abasement. He realized,
however obscurely, that he was an eyesore in nature, a blotch on the
surface of the world, an offence to the sweet-breathing heavens. And
that bright silence was so strange and still; he could have screamed to
escape it.

The slow ticking of the kitchen clock seemed to beat upon his raw brain.
Damn the thing, why didn't it stop--with its monotonous tick-tack,
tick-tack, tick-tack? He could feel it inside his head, where it seemed
to strike innumerable little blows on a strained chord it was bent on
snapping.

He tiptoed back to the kitchen on noiseless feet, and cocking his ear to
listen, he heard the murmur of women's voices in the parlour. There was
a look of slyness and cunning in his face, and his eyes glittered with
desire. The whisky was still on the table. He seized the bottle
greedily, and tilting it up, let the raw liquid