"Oh, I don't begrudge them," returned Will; a little ashamed of his show of temper; "fine clothes suit you, and I hope you will squeeze them out of grandpa all you can. It's as good a way for him to spend his money as any other, and it doesn't hurt me so long as he'll never let me see the colour of a cent." "But your promise, dear? Will you promise me?" He lifted his sullen face toward her kind eyes, then turning away, kicked listlessly at the rotting chips. "What's the use in promising? I wouldn't keep it," he replied. "Why, there are times when but for whisky I'd go mad. It's the life, I tell you, that's killing me, not drink. If things were different I shouldn't crave it--I shouldn't miss it, even. Why, for three months after I married Molly I didn't touch a single drop, and I'd have kept it up, too, except for grandpa's devilment. It's his fault; he drove me back to it as clear as day." His weak mouth quivered, and he sucked in his breath in the way he had inherited from Fletcher. The deep flush across his face faded slowly, and dropping his restless, bloodshot eyes, he dug his foot into the mould with spasmodic twitches of his body. His clothes appeared to have been flung upon him, and his cravat and loosened collar betrayed the lack of neatness which had always repelled Maria so strongly in her grandfather. As she watched him she wondered with a pang that she had never noticed until to-day the resemblance he bore to the old man at the Hall. "But one must be patient, Will," she said helplessly after a moment's thought; "there's always hope of a mending--and as far as that goes, grandfather may relent tomorrow." "Relent? Pshaw! I'd like to see him do it this side of hell. Let him die; that's all I ask of him. His room is a long sight better than his company, and you may tell him I said so." "What good would come of that?" "I don't want any good to come of it. Why should I? He's brought me to this pass with his own hand." "But surely it was partly your fault. He loved you once." "Nonsense. He wanted a dog to badger, that was all. Christopher Blake said so." "Christopher Blake! Oh, Will, Will, if you could only understand!" She turned hopelessly away from him and looked with despairing eyes over the ploughed fields which blushed faintly in the sunshine. "So your spring ploughing is all done," she said at last, desisting from her attempt to soften his sullen obduracy, "and you have been working harder than I knew." "Oh, it's not I," returned Will promptly, his face clearing for the first time. "It's all Christopher's work; he ploughed that field just before he went away. Do you see that new cover over the well? He knocked that up the last morning he was here, and made those steps before the front door at the same time. Now, he's the kind of friend worth having, and no mistake. But for him I'd have landed in the poorhouse long ago." Maria's gaze left the field and returned to Will's face, where it lingered wistfully.