A second glass followed shortly after, and then, tired out with the day's work, the young man threw himself on the sofa. The sounds outside by degrees grew indistinct and distant, and then, with a pale, ghost-like Eve following him always, he was journeying through foreign lands with Daisy, who looked lovingly up in his face. Then, Tom Podmore seemed to be pursuing him and threatening his life. Next it was the vicar; and then, at last, after struggling hard to get away, Joe Banks stood over him with a flashing light, and as he waited to hear him say, "Where is my child?"--waited with a feeling of suspense that seemed prolonged for years, the voice said coldly and sternly: "Why are you not in bed?" He started into wakefulness to see that it was his mother standing over him with a chamber candlestick, looking very cold and white. "How could I go to bed when you were not back?" he said sulkily. "You can go to bed now," she said, quietly. "Where have you been?" She made no answer. "Were there many of those scoundrels about?" he asked. "The men would not injure me," she said, in the same low voice. "But how did you get in?" "Eve came down and admitted me," was the reply. "What's o'clock?" Mrs Glaire made no answer. "Oh, if you like to be sulky you can," said Richard, coolly; and, lighting a chamber candle, he strode off to bed. As he turned to wind up his watch in a sleepy manner, he found that it had run down, so with an impatient gesture he laid it aside, finished undressing, and tumbled into bed. "Some of them will open their eyes to-morrow," he muttered, with a half-laugh. "Well, it was time to act. I'm not going to be under petticoat government all my life." At the same time Mrs Glaire was seated pale and shivering in the dining-room, while all else in the house were sleeping soundly, and the street was now painfully still, for the murmuring workers of the foundry had long since sought their homes, more than one sending up a curse on Richard Glaire, instead of a prayer for his well-being and peace. Volume 2, Chapter VIII. OLD FRIENDS AGAIN. "If I could only tell him everything," muttered John Maine, as he strode away from the vicar's side, and made for the farm. He was not half-way back, when he met Tom Brough, the keeper, who favoured him with a sneering, contemptuous kind of smile that made the young man's blood boil. He knew him to be a rival, though he felt sure that Jessie did not favour his suit in the slightest degree. Still her uncle seemed to look upon Brough as a likely man to make his niece a good partner; for Tom Brough expected to come in for a fair amount of property, an old relative having him down in his will for succession to a comfortable farm--a nice thing, argued old Bultitude, for a young couple beginning life.