With an ejaculation of terror she snatched the knife out of his small hands, clenched now so wickedly. "Heaven forgive me," she thought, laying it down on the table. "My hatred comes out in him. I may lead him into danger. Heaven keep his father out of his way. I should see a doctor." She glanced round the room and laughed bitterly. "Oh, Heavens'" she broke out aloud. "See a doctor. I can't pay, and ask him in this hovel! Charity? No, no. I'll earn my bread, if I die in the earning." And she fell as fiercely as before to her sewing. Gilbert, now himself again, ate slowly and with much enjoyment. At intervals he fed the horse which he had brought to the table with him. His mother watched him, pondering over his late outburst so terribly suggestive of the latent instincts in the child. She knew well the reason of it, though she would not acknowledge so much even to herself. Her husband had treated her brutally, and the high-spirited creature had resented his behaviour with passionate hatred. She had taught her child to detest his father. It was a wild night. The wind beat against the crazy building till it creaked in all its loosened joints. Still the woman went on sewing, and the boy continued to eat. A miserable silence settled down upon them. Suddenly the mother raised her hand, and the child stopped eating with an expression of terror on his white face. The woman listened, wild eyed--not in vain. From some distance came the sound of a dragging footstep. There was a drag, a halt, and then again a drag, as though some wounded animal were writhing its way to a place of safety. The outcast knew the sound of that halting gait only two well. So did the boy. "It's father!" he cried, shrilly. A look of mingled terror, repulsion, hatred, took possession of his white face. "Hush!" said the woman, imperatively, and left the room. For a moment Gilbert sat quietly listening; then his small hand slipped along the table to grasp the buck-handled knife. Trembling with excitement, he watched the door; he could hear without his mother's taunting voice. "Come in, Mark Jenner. I know you are standing there in the darkness. Enter, and see the state to which your wickedness has reduced your wife and child. Come in, you lying scoundrel, you brute, you thief!" In answer to this invitation came a growl as of an angry animal. Then the footsteps dragged themselves nearer and halted at the door. There ensued the sound of taunts and curses. And almost immediately after this exchange of courtesies between husband and wife, who had been parted for three years, the door opened to admit a thick-set man, whose face, in spite of its cunning, was not devoid of refinement. He was in rags and soaking with the wet.