The handle of the street door of Mr. Chester's house could be so worked from without by any person initiated into the secret that it yielded easily to practised fingers. This was Mr. Chester's ingenious invention. Early in his married life he had found it not agreeable to his sensitive feelings that, after a night's carouse, the door should be opened for him by his wife. Hence the device. At one o'clock on this morning he opened his street door and entered his house. Mrs. Chester was still up, mending Sally's clothes. On a corner of the table at which she was working, his supper of bread-and-cheese was laid. As he entered, his wife glanced at him, and then bent her eyes to her work, without uttering a word. Receiving no favourable response to his weak smile, he fell-to upon his supper. By the time Mr. Chester had finished, the silence had become intolerable to him. His wife, having mended Sally's clothes, was now gathering them together. He made another conciliatory step. "How is Sally?" he asked. Mrs. Chester's lip curled. "Sally's asleep," she answered. "Did you get her any--any strengthening things?" "No. All the shops were shut--except the public-houses." "Ah, yes, I forgot. But you might have asked her if she fancied anything." "I said to her last week," replied the mother, with a dark, fierce flash into her husband's face, "when she came out of one of her faints, 'Sally, what would you like?' 'I'd like some gin, mother,' she answered. I was afraid she might give me the same answer again." He quailed before the look, and the strong reproach conveyed in the mother's words. "Don't let's have any more quarrelling to-night, old woman," he said. "I don't want any quarrelling: I'm not a match for you, Dick." "That's as it should be, old woman," he said, recovering his spirits. "Man's the master." "You're good at words, Dick." "That's so," he chuckled vainfully. "But better at something else." "At what, old woman?" With a scornful glance she laid before him the strap with which he was in the habit of striking her. "There's no arguing with a woman," he said, with rare discretion. "Come, it's time to get to bed. I suppose the new lodger is in." "He came in an hour ago." "And the little girl?" "She's asleep with Sally." Mr. Chester, who had risen, stood silent for a few moments, drumming gently with his fingers on the table. "Did you see him when he came home?" Mrs. Chester's anger was spent, and her husband's kinder tone now met with a kindred response. "No, Dick." "Ah, then, there's no use asking. But you might have heard something, Loo." "What might I have heard, Dick?" she asked, approaching close to his side. He passed his arms around her. "Something that would have reminded you----" He broke off abruptly with, "No matter." "But tell me, Dick." "When I was at the Royal George I fancied I heard a man playing on a tin whistle." Mrs. Chester's lips quivered, and a shudder ran through her frame.