All the bitterness he was compelled to dissemble, all the contempt he felt but must not show, Inman unloaded on his wife when they were alone. As he had stood by her side, waiting for her to show signs of returning consciousness, he had prayed that her life might be spared: that he might not be robbed of the vengeance he had promised himself. That the prayer was addressed to nobody in particular does not matter. It seemed for a time as if the petition would be denied him, for Nancy rallied from one swoon to fall into another; but she was young and strong and her body resisted death’s claim. In a fortnight she was sitting up in her room, and her husband’s brow was black. “What are you whining for?” he asked her, when she looked up into his face and cried, the first time they were alone;—“If you hadn’t been so busy sweet-hearting your eyes and ears ’ud have been open! You’ve got what you deserved!” The tears dried on Nancy’s cheeks, and the feeling of pity for the father who had been bereaved like herself gave place to a nausea that was too physical to be called hate. She did not tell him the insinuation was a lie, but knocked for Keturah, and fell into her arms when she came, deathly sick. From that moment Inman had persecuted her, assuming her guilt from the slender evidence that it was Jagger who had recovered the child, and her own confusion, but making no inquiries lest his suspicion should be removed, and as she grew stronger the hatred he took no trouble to conceal spread to her own heart and revealed itself in her face. There was then open war between them, carefully concealed, however, from everyone but themselves. One circumstance gave Nancy satisfaction. Her husband showed no disposition to share her room. “You may stay where you are!” he said to Keturah when she suggested that Nancy no longer required her services: “I’m going to stop where I am.” It was at this time that the Drakes experienced a more serious mishap than had hitherto befallen them. On reaching their work at a building which was being erected at some little distance from the village, they found one morning to their dismay that the stays to the roof principals had been removed, and that the whole superstructure had fallen, doing much damage. Father and son looked at each other in silence. Each knew that this was a serious disaster. “It’s no accident, father!” said Jagger, speaking through closed teeth. “It’s no accident, lad! Them stays has been ta’en down since we left!” “_He’ll_ give it out ’at they weren’t right fixed,” continued Jagger;—“’at we’re too damned careless to be trusted to knock a soap-box together. Look what he said when he set t’ timber loose!” He referred to an occasion when timber, which they had set in the stream to season had been found farther down the river when daylight came, and Inman had said with a sneer that the Drakes were too damned careless to tie a knot in a rope.