“Maybe so, maybe no,” said Davy. “You see, I’m like Kinvig these days, and go to bed to do my thinking. The ould man’s cart-wheel came off in the road once, and we couldn’t rig it on again no how. ‘Hould hard, boys,’ says Kinvig; and he went away home and up to the loft, and whipped off his clothes, and into the blankets and stayed there till he’d got the lay of that cartwheel. Aw, yes, though--thinking, thinking, thinking constant--that’s me when I’m in bed. But it isn’t the lying awake I’m minding. Och, no; it’s the wakening up again. That’s like nothing in the world but a rusty nail going driving into your skull afore a blacksmith’s seven-pound sledge. Good night, mate; good night.” CHAPTER IV. Next day Lovibond saw Mrs. Quiggin at Castle Mona. He had come at once in obedience to her summons, and she took his sympathies by storm. It was hard for him to realize that he had not seen her somewhere before. He _had_ seen her--in his own description of the girl in church, helped out, led on, directed, vivified, and transfigured by Capt’n Davy’s own impetuous picture, just as the mesmerist sees what he pretends to show by aid of the eye of the mesmerized. There she sat, like one for whom life had lost its savor. Her great slow eyes, her pale and quivering face,’ her long deep look as she took his hand, and her softly tightening grasp of it went through him like a knife. Not all his loyalty to Capt’n Davy could crush the thought that the man who had thrown away a jewel such as this must be a brute and a blockhead. But the sweet woman was not so lost to life that she did not see her advantage. There were some weary sighs and then she said:-- “I am in great, great trouble about my husband. They say he is wasting his money. Is it true?” “Too true,” said Lovibond. “And that if he goes on as he is now going he will be penniless?” “Not impossible,” said Lovibond, “provided the mad fit last long enough.” “Is remonstrance quite useless, Mr. Lovibond?” “Quite, Mrs. Quiggin.” The great slow eyes began to fill, and Lovibond’s gaze to seek the laces of his boots. “It is sorrow enough to me, Mr. Lovibond, that my husband and I have quarreled and parted, but it will be the worst grief of all if some day I should have to think that I came into his life to wreck it.” “Don’t blame yourself for that, Mrs. Quiggin. It will be his own fault if he ruins himself.” “You are very good, Mr. Lovi-bond.” “Your husband will never blame you either.” “That will hardly reconcile me to his misfortunes.” [“The man’s an ass,” thought Lovibond.] “I shall not trouble him much longer with my presence here,” Mrs. Quiggin continued, and Lovibond looked up inquiringly. “I am going back home soon,” she added. “But if before I go some friend would help me to save my husband from himself----” Lovibond rose in an instant. “I am at your service, Mrs. Quiggin,” he said briskly. “Have you thought of anything?”