It was strange and terribly revealing to hear her ask for help, and he was more than sobered by the time the nurse returned from bawling over the banisters, "Potts, are you all right?" and getting answer, "Ay, I'm that," in a tone of menace. "Now, out you go!" she said, and locked the door upon him. He went, staggering, to the bar, and stared at Potts, who was wiping down the counter. He put a hand to his forehead, for thought was growing dim again. "I'm not sure," he said, "what happened. Did I--did I----" "Yes, you did," said Potts, "and if it wasn't for the mistress I'd give you another. You're not fit to live." "That's true," said Rutherford; "that's perfectly true. I'll go out and think about it." When he returned, after long wanderings in the dark, he was told he had a son, but he would not look at what he considered the cause of that night's work, and later, when reason had more force with him, he still refused to concern himself with the child, for, at the sight of his small, solemn face and thick, black hair there always arose a mist through which there moved pictures of Potts lying on the floor amidst the broken glass and Clara with that changed, white face. He suffered from an unspeakable shame which was the greater that Clara never reproached him; but, as time wore on, and, following her wishes as well as his, they left the place for this little house among the lonelier hills, his shame became absorbed into a sense of grievance against the child. "You see," he would say to Clara, almost in triumph, when, in answer to a scowl, Alexander set up a cry, "he hates me!" "He'd hate me if I looked like you," she replied, with rare sharpness. "If you'd only learn to be honest with yourself, my man, things would be better for us all." Instead of honesty, he developed a fractious gloom which seldom changed to anything but despair, and if Clara did not lose her courage at this time, it may be that her buoyancy drooped a little. Yet she made him work. There was waste ground behind the house, and, after constant urging and encouragement from Clara, who also found time to ask Heaven to mete adequate punishment on his father, he made it into a garden of which he was proud, and when she saw him working there, with a cleared brow, she felt that, after all, they had not made such a bad thing of their lives. There remained the problem of Alexander, for the attitude of the menfolk towards each other grew bitterer with the years, and she passed her days in dread of ultimate violence; but it did not do, she found, to live too much in the future, experiencing troubles which a wise optimism might frustrate, and so, following the creatures of the wilds, she had developed those characteristics which were most likely to preserve herself and hers, until, like the willingness of her neighbours, her heroic effort had become a habit. CHAPTER IV