Then anger took the place of love--a foolish, mad anger, which robbed him of his self-control, and made him utter words beneath whose passion the poor girl bent as bends flower before the storm. He uttered words then that an hour after he would have given anything to recall; telling her angrily of _ma mere_ and her slighting hints, of Jarker's familiarity, and lastly of the meeting he had witnessed in the Lane; unheeding the hands held up so deprecatingly, the appealing looks, and the tear-wet, pallid cheeks; for, as he told himself again and again that night, he was mad--mad in his passionate love for one unworthy--mad in his words; and he writhed as he recalled the way in which he felt that he had lowered himself. "I insist--I hold it as a right!" he had exclaimed; "tell me, Lucy, who was that woman? Do you know her character?" And he clutched her wrist angrily as he spoke. He said no more then, for Lucy's face was aflame, and she started hastily to her feet, facing him almost as it were at bay, and vainly trying to free her hand from his grasp. "Do your parents know of your meetings?" he exclaimed. "No, no, no!" she cried excitedly, as she glanced towards the back-room door. "Then I must--nay," he added with almost a cowardly look of triumph, for the weakness of the man was triumphant that afternoon, and he yielded to all that he had hitherto triumphed over--"I will tell them," he said, "for your good." "For pity's sake," whispered Lucy, "Mr Sterne. Ah, pray, sir, stop-- pray stay! Do not think ill of me--" But there Lucy ceased, for she was alone; and once more scornfully, with the cold bitter look, Mr Sterne had dashed her hand from him in contempt and turned from the room, into which Mrs Hardon now came to find Lucy weeping as though her heart would break. Volume Three, Chapter II. SNUFF. Old Matt did not wake again for many hours, but, as the days slipped by, he partook with avidity of all that was allowed him, and grumbled for more. His friend the house-surgeon, whom he could look at now without imagining that he took notes inimical to his friend Septimus Hardon's interest, reported favourably of his condition; while Septimus himself came again and again, each time more eager to get at that which was hidden by the confusion in old Matt's brain. "If he had only been so jolly anxious about the Somesham affair, first start off, what a difference it would have made!" grumbled Matt. But it seemed useless to try and draw the old man's attention to things he had talked of in the days shortly before his entry of the hospital, for here all seemed blank.