For the second time that night the woman fell upon her knees. She flung herself at the landlord’s feet. There never was grosser clay in the world than his. He neither pitied nor spared her. Nay, he prolonged the agony of her self-abasement to the last bitter moment. He drew out the frenzy of her abandonment to its last wild prayer. He derived an intimate pleasure from the picture of the creature at his feet, casting herself upon his mercy. It was the rarest nectar to his self-esteem; he sipped it to the dregs and smacked his lips upon it. He waited as one melting in spite of himself, and then dashed her hopes to the earth by adopting the same precise, formal voice he had used before: “Madam, I am determined to do my duty.” “I beseech you; I implore you!” cried the unhappy woman. “Will you have no mercy for the sufferings of a wife?” The landlord turned from her coldly. “Will you have no pity for the agonies of a mother?” she cried. “Will you not spare the father of the babe I bear?” In the mad frenzy of her fear she suddenly rose to her feet, with all the blood quivering and sparkling now in her cheeks. The landlord admitted to himself, even as he tortured her, that there never was so perfectly noble, so perfectly magnificent a creature as this wretched lady. But when she flung back her cloak to lend the prayer of her motherhood an additional emphasis, he laughed in her face. It was more than the woman could endure; the last appeal of her sex had been despised. The shame and the agony overcame her; she sank senseless to the kitchen floor. The landlord, by a deft use of cordials and cold water, brought her to her senses very soon. “Mercy, mercy!” she moaned as her eyes came open. The landlord, deeming that the comedy had gone far enough for that night at least, thought it time he appeared in his true character. He exchanged the formal tone he had used when he spoke of doing his duty, for one more natural to him. “You shall purchase a day’s respite, madam,” he said, in a brisk voice of business, “on one condition.” The woman’s heart leapt in her side. “Take that ring of sapphires off your finger, madam, and place it in my hand. On that condition, I will undertake not to lodge an information against your husband during the next twenty-four hours.” The woman plucked off the ring eagerly, and, giving it to the landlord, thanked him with eyes that shone far more bravely than the jewels that she gave away. In the security of the short respite she had purchased, she went upstairs to the chamber of her stricken lord. It was almost less than nothing; yet, after all, there was one day more left to her in which she might struggle wildly for her husband’s safety.