But the boy continued to sob convulsively, and it required all her arts to pacify him. She knew from experience what the end of this outbreak would be if it continued beyond a point. The lad was precocious and neurotic, quite undisciplined, taking colour from his surroundings, tone from the atmosphere in which he chanced to be; and as the fit took him, could be angel or demon. But in ten minutes the mother had succeeded in soothing him sufficiently to send him back to his play. Then she recommenced her work, and as the needle flew through the coarse stuff she thought of her husband. "The brute! The hound!" so ran her thoughts. "It is his work. If Gilbert should see him again he would die or go mad, or fall into one of his trances. In any case he would be lost to me. Ah!" she broke out aloud, pushing the hair from her lined forehead. "How long will it last?" There was no answer to the despairing question, and she went on sewing, listening the while to the prattle of her lad. "Stand still. Brownie!" the child was saying. "You aren't galloping over the big green of Bedford-park. Do you remember your nice stable by this there, Brownie, and the pretty rooms? I don't like this house any more than you do. Mother was happy in our pretty cottage, so was I, so was my Brownie." "Mother will never be happy again," murmured the woman, savagely stabbing the flannel as though she were stabbing the man of whom she was thinking. "Ruin and disaster. Disaster and ruin! Why are such men created?" Gilbert took no notice. "Do you remember the red houses, Brownie, and the railway? I took you there often for a trot. It was just three years ago. Trot now!" "Aye, just three years!" cried the woman. "Years of agony, pain, shame and disgrace. Why doesn't he die!" and she bit off the end of a thread viciously. "Mother," said the boy, unexpectedly, "I'm hungry. Give me something to eat." The woman opened a cupboard and brought out a small loaf, a bundle of victuals, and a tiny packet of tea, precious as gold to her poverty. In silence she boiled the kettle and brewed a cup; in silence she set the food before the hungry child. But when he began to eat her feelings proved too much for her. She burst into fierce words. "Eat the bread of charity, Gilbert!" she said in a loud, hard voice, and still speaking as though to a person of her own age. "The loaf only is paid for by our own money. I got the bones and the meat from Miss Cass at the Hall. She took me for a beggar in spite of the work I have done for her. And she is right, I am a beggar--so are you--and your father---- There, there! Don't look so scared. We will not speak of him." Then the boy did a strange thing. With a sudden pounce he seized a sharp-pointed, buck-handled knife used for cutting the bread, and, raising it in the air, looked at his mother with fierce eyes. "If my father takes me away from you," he said, shrilly, "I'll stick this into him. I will, mother!"