"What! Are you going to steal again? I want none of your ill-gotten gains. This house is poor, but it is honest. I earn the food my child and I eat, or I beg it; but stealing? No, I leave that to you. Why have you come here?" "I thought we might come together again and live a new life." Mrs. Jenner threw aside her work and sprang up. "I would rather die," she said, in a voice of intense hatred. "You treated me like a dog; you struck me; you starved me; you were unfaithful to me. I would rather die." "It was the drink," Jenner pleaded. "I was all right when I was sober." "And were you ever sober?" demanded the woman, bitterly. "Not you. In spite of all my care you lay in the mire and wallowed like the pig you are." "This is a nice welcome," grumbled the man, beginning to lose his temper. "What did you expect? Tears and kisses, and the killing of the fatted calf? No, my man; I have been a fool too long. I am no fool now. You have hunted me down; how, I know not. But you don't stay here. You go. And, this time you go--for ever." "My rights as a husband and a father----" "A criminal has no rights," interrupted his wife. "Think of the past," she went on in a loud, hard voice. "Think of it, and then wonder at your audacity in coming here to face me--me whom you have ruined." "I don't want to think of the past--and I won't. Leave it alone. It's dead and done with." "Yes, but the consequences remain. Look at this house--your work. See my withered looks--your work. Think of the child and his mysterious illness--your work. You forget all that you have done. I do not; and I intend to refresh your memory." Jenner turned sullen. There was no chance of escaping from this, save by going out again into the storm, and he was much too comfortable where he was. So of the two evils he chose the lesser; and even in this his selfish regard for his own comfort shewed itself. "Go on, then," he growled, sullenly. The woman returned to her seat, and averting her eyes she began to speak in a low, monotonous voice, rising ever and growing more excited as she went through the story of shame and sorrow. "Let me begin at the beginning, when I was governess to Mr. Cass's little girl; then I was happy and respected. I was pretty, too, and admired. Mr. Cass was a merchant in the city, trading in Spanish wines----" "What's the use of telling me all this?" broke in Jenner, impatiently. "It is all state. I was a clerk in Cass's office; I met you at his house when I was there on business, and I married you----" "Yes, you married me," she cried, fiercely. "The more fool I for being taken by your good looks and your plausible tongue. For my sake it was that Mr. Cass raised you to a higher position and gave you a larger salary. We lived in Bloomsbury, and there, ten years ago, Gilbert was born; but not until you had broken my heart and ruined my life." "Come now, I was kind to you when I was sober."