"Why, there are times when but for whisky I'd go mad.It's the life, I tell you, that's killing me, not drink.If things were different I shouldn't crave it--I shouldn't miss it, even.Why, for three months after I married Molly I didn't touch a single drop, and I'd have kept it up, too, except for grandpa's devilment.It's his fault; he drove me back to it as clear as day."His weak mouth quivered, and he sucked in his breath in the way he had inherited from Fletcher.The deep flush across his face faded slowly, and dropping his restless, bloodshot eyes, he dug his foot into the mould with spasmodic twitches of his body.His clothes appeared to have been flung upon him, and his cravat and loosened collar betrayed the lack of neatness which had always repelled Maria so strongly in her grandfather.As she watched him she wondered with a pang that she had never noticed until to-day the resemblance he bore to the old man at the Hall.
"But one must be patient, Will," she said helplessly after a moment's thought; "there's always hope of a mending--and as far as that goes, grandfather may relent tomorrow.""Relent? Pshaw! I'd like to see him do it this side of hell.Let him die; that's all I ask of him.His room is a long sight better than his company, and you may tell him I said so.""What good would come of that?"
"I don't want any good to come of it.Why should I? He's brought me to this pass with his own hand.""But surely it was partly your fault.He loved you once.""Nonsense.He wanted a dog to badger, that was all.Christopher Blake said so.""Christopher Blake! Oh, Will, Will, if you could only understand!"She turned hopelessly away from him and looked with despairing eyes over the ploughed fields which blushed faintly in the sunshine.
"So your spring ploughing is all done," she said at last, desisting from her attempt to soften his sullen obduracy, "and you have been working harder than I knew.""Oh, it's not I," returned Will promptly, his face clearing for the first time."It's all Christopher's work; he ploughed that field just before he went away.Do you see that new cover over the well? He knocked that up the last morning he was here, and made those steps before the front door at the same time.Now, he's the kind of friend worth having, and no mistake.But for him I'd have landed in the poorhouse long ago."Maria's gaze left the field and returned to Will's face, where it lingered wistfully.
"Have you ever heard what it was all about, Will?" she asked, "the old trouble between him and grandfather?""Some silly property right, I believe; I can't remember.Did you ever see anybody yet with whom grandpa was on decent terms?""He used to be with you, Will."
"Only so long as I wore short breeches and he could whack me over the head whenever he had a mind to.I tell you I'd rather try to get along with Beelzebub himself.""Have you ever tried peace-making in earnest, I wonder?"Twirling a chip between his thumb and forefinger, he flirted it angrily at a solitary hen scratching in the mould.
"Why, shortly after my marriage I went over there and positively wiped up the floor with myself.I offered him everything under heaven in the shape of good behaviour, and, by Jove! I meant it, too.I'd have stopped drinking then; I'd even have given up Christopher Blake--""Did you tell him that?"
"Did I ever tell a thunderstorm I'd run indoors? It was enough to get away with a whole skin--he left me little more.And the day afterward, by the way, he sent me the deeds to this rotten farm, and warned me that he'd shoot me down if I ever set foot at the Hall.""And there has been no softening--no wavering since?"Will shook his head with a brutal laugh."Oh, you heard of our meeting in the road and what came of it.I told him I was starving: he answered that he wasn't responsible for all the worthless paupers in the county.Then I cursed him, and he broke his stick on my shoulders.I say, Maria," he wound up desperately, "do you think he'll live forever?"She kept her eyes upon him without answering, fearing to tell him that by the terms of the new will he could never come into his share of Fletcher's wealth.
"Has he ever seen Molly?" she asked suddenly, while an unreasonable hope shot through her heart."Does he know about the child?""He may have seen her--I don't know; but she's not so much to look at now: she's gone all to pieces under this awful worry.It isn't my fault, God knows, but she expected different things when she married me.She thought we'd live somewhere in the city and that she'd have pretty clothes to wear.""I was thinking that when the child came he might forgive you,"broke in Maria almost cheerfully.
"And in the meantime we're to die like rats.Oh, there's no use talking, it's got to end one way or another.There's not a cent in the house nor a decent scrap of food, and Molly is having to see the doctor every day.I declare, it's enough to drive me clean to desperation!""And what good would that do Molly or yourself? Be a man, Will, and don't let a woman hear you whine.Now I'm going in to see her, and I'll stay to help her about supper."She nodded brightly, and, opening the little door of the house, passed into the single lower room which served as kitchen and dining-room in one.Beyond the disorderly table, from which the remains of dinner had not yet been cleared away, Molly was lying on a hard wooden lounge covered with strips of faded calico.Her abundant flaxen hair hung in lusterless masses upon her shoulders, and the soiled cotton wrapper she wore was torn open at the throat as if she had clutched it in a passion of childish petulance.At Maria's entrance she started and looked up angrily from her dejected attitude.
"I can't see any visitors--I'm not fit!" she cried.
Marie drew forward a broken split--bottomed chair and sat down beside the lounge.
