A few evenings after this, Gabriel Conroy was sitting alone by the hearth of that new house, which popular opinion and the tastes of Mrs. Conroy seemed to think was essential to his new condition. It was a larger, more ambitious, more expensive, and perhaps less comfortable dwelling than the one in which he has been introduced to the reader. It was projected upon that credit which a man of family was sure to obtain in One Horse Gulch, where the immigration and establishment of families and household centres were fostered even at pecuniary risks. It contained, beside the chambers, the gratuitous addition of a parlour, which at this moment was adorned and made attractive by the presence of Mrs. Conroy, who was entertaining a few visitors that, under her attractions, had prolonged their sitting until late. When the laugh had ceased and the door closed on the last lingering imbecile, Mrs. Conroy returned to the sitting-room. It was dark, for Gabriel had not lighted a candle yet, and he was occupying his favourite seat and attitude before the fire. "Why! are _you_ there?" said Mrs. Conroy, gaily. Gabriel looked up, and with that seriousness which was habitual to him, replied-- "Yes." Mrs. Conroy approached her lord and master, and ran her thin, claw-like fingers through his hair with married audacity. He caught them, held them for a moment with a kindly, caressing, and yet slightly embarrassed air that the lady did not like. She withdrew them quickly. "Why didn't you come into the parlour?" she said, examining him curiously. "I didn't admire to to-night," returned Gabriel, with grave simplicity, "and I reckoned you'd get on as well without me." There was not the slightest trace of bitterness nor aggrieved sensitiveness in his tone or manner, and although Mrs. Conroy eyed him sharply for any latent spark of jealousy, she was forced to admit to herself that it did not exist in the quiet, serious man before her. Vaguely aware of some annoyance in his wife's face, Gabriel reached out his arm, and, lightly taking her around her waist, drew her to his knee. But the very act was so evidently a recognition of a certain kind of physical and moral weakness in the creature before him--so professional--so, as Mrs. Conroy put it to herself,--"like as if I were a sick man," that her irritation was not soothed. She rose quickly and seated herself on the other side of the fireplace. With the same implied toleration Gabriel had already displayed, he now made no attempt to restrain her. Mrs. Conroy did not pout as another woman might have done. She only smiled a haggard smile that deepened the line of her nostril into her cheek, and pinched her thin, straight nose. Then she said, looking at the fire-- "Ain't you well?" "I reckon not--not overly well." There was a silence, both looking at the fire. "You don't get anything out of that hill-side?" asked Mrs. Conroy at last, pettishly. "No," said Gabriel.