"I couldn't help it," he answered with assumed indifference, entering and passing quickly under the fire of her questioning look. "I was kept."
"What kept you?"
"Oh, business."
"I'd like to know what business you have!" she retorted querulously; and a minute later: "Have you brought the medicine?"
He went over to the table and stood looking gloomily down upon the scattered remains of supper upon the sloppy oilcloth, the cracked earthenware teapot, and the plate half filled with soppy bread. "Give me something to eat. I'm almost starved," he pleaded.
A flash shot from her blue eyes, while the anger he had feared worked threateningly in the features of her pretty face. There was no temperateness about Molly; she was all storm or sunshine, he had once said in the poetic days of courtship.
"If you've brought the things, where are they?" she demanded, driving him squarely into a corner from which there was no escape by subterfuge.
A sullen defiance showed in his aspect, and he turned upon her with a muttered curse. "I haven't them, if you want the truth," he snarled. "I meant to buy them, but Fred Turner got me to drinking and we bet on the races. I lost the money."
"To Fred Turner!" cried Molly. "Oh, you fool!"
He made an angry movement toward her; then checking himself, laughed bitterly.