He was always very civil to her; but there was something about him, his lowering, evil face, and wild looks, which made him a living nightmare to her. She knew he was flying from justice, by the way he came and went, and by the precaution always taken when he was there. But when he came to live in the room over theirs, and when, by listening at odd times, she found that he and her husband were engaged in some great villany, the nature of which she could not understand, then she saw that there was nothing to do, but in sheer desperation to sit down and wait the catastrophe. About this time she made another discovery, that she was penniless, and had been so some time. George had given her money from time to time to carry on household expenses, and she contrived to make these sums answer well enough. But one day, determined to know the worst, she asked him, at the risk of another explosion, how their account stood at the bank? He replied in the best of his humours, apparently, "that the five thousand they had had there had been overdrawn some six weeks, and that, if it hadn't been for his exertions in various ways, she'd have been starved out before now." "All gone!" she said; "and where to?" "To the devil," he answered. "And you may go after it." "And what are we to do now, George?" "The best we can." "But the baby, George? I shall lie-in in three months." "You must take your chance, and the baby too. As long as there's any money going you'll get some of it. If you wrote to your father you might get some." "I'll never do that," she said. "Won't you?" said he; "I'll starve you into it when money gets scarce." Things remained like this till it came to be nearly ten months from their marriage. Mary had never written home but once, from Brighton, and then, as we know, the answer had miscarried; so she, conceiving she was cast off by her father, had never attempted to communicate with him again. The time grew nigh that she should be confined, and she got very sick and ill, and still the man Maitland lived in the house, and he and George spent much of their time at night, away together. Yet poor Mary had a friend who stayed by her through it all--Captain Saxon, the great billiard sharper. Many a weary hour, when she was watching up anxious and ill for her husband, this man would come and sit with her, talking agreeably and well about many things; but chiefly about the life he used to lead before he fell so low as he was then. He used to say, "Mrs. Hawker, you cannot tell what a relief and pleasure it is to me to have a LADY to talk to again. You must conceive how a man brought up like myself misses it." "Surely, Captain Saxon," she would say, "you have some relations left. Why not go back to them?"