'Sit down and have some dinner, and don't be so foolish,' he said, trying to be jocular, as he lifted the cover from the soup.

'Eat with you? Never!' she answered theatrically. But the interest he showed in the steaming liquid annoyed her so much that, overcome by a sudden gust of passion, she upset the tureen into his lap. Dick uttered a scream, and in starting back he overturned his chair. Although not scalding, the soup was still hot enough to burn him, and he held his thighs dolorously. The tablecloth was deluged, the hearthrug steamed; and, regardless of everything, Kate rushed past, accusing her husband of cruelty, of unfaithfulness, stopping only to reproach him with a desire to desert her. While Dick in dripping trousers asked what he had done to deserve having the soup flung over him, Kate's hair became unloosened and hung down her shoulders like a sheaf of black plumes. Dick thought of changing his trousers, but the intensity of her passion detained him. Stopping suddenly before the table, she poured out a tumbler of sherry, and drank it almost at a gulp. It was as nauseous to her taste as lukewarm water, and she yearned for brandy. It would sting her, would awaken the dull ache of her palate, and she knew well where the bottle was; she could see it in her mind's eye, the black neck leaning against the frame of the picture. Why should she not go and fetch it, and insult him with the confession of her sin? Was it not he who drove her to it? So Kate thought in her madness, and the lack of courage to execute her wishes angered her still further against the fat creature who lay staring at her, lying back in the armchair. She applied herself again to the sherry and swallowed greedily.

'For goodness' sake,' said Dick, who began to get alarmed, 'don't drink that! You'll get drunk.'

'Well, what does it matter if I do? It's you who drive me to it. If you don't like it, go to Miss Vane.'

'What! You've not finished with that yet? Haven't I told you twenty times that there's nothing between me and Miss Vane? I haven't spoken to her for the last three days.'

'That's a lie!' shrieked Kate. 'You went to meet her this morning. I saw you. Do you take me for a fool? But oh! I don't know how you can be such a beast! If you wanted to desert me, why did you ever take me away from Hanley? But you can go now, I don't want the leavings of that creature.'

Taken aback by what was nothing more than a random guess, Dick hesitated, and then, deciding that he might as well be caught out in two lies as in one, he said, as a sort of forlorn hope:

'If you saw us you must have seen that she was with Jackson, and that I didn't do any more than raise my hat.'

Kate made no answer; she was too excited to follow out the train of the simplest idea, and continued to rave incoherent statements of all kinds. The landlady came up to ask when she should bring up the leg of mutton, but she went away frightened. There was no dinner that day. Amid screams and violent words the evening died slowly, and the room darkened until nothing was seen but the fitful firelight playing on Dick's hands; but still the vague form of the woman passed through the shadows like a figure of avenging fate. Would she never grow tired and sit down? Dick asked himself a thousand times. It seemed as if it would never cease, and the incessant repetition of the same words and gestures turned in the brain with the mechanical movement of a wheel, dimming the sense of reality and producing the obtuse terror of a nightmare. But from this state of semi-consciousness he was suddenly awakened by the violent ringing of the bell.

'What do you want? Can I get you anything?'