"Yes, it was already arranged, and you blamed me!" gasped Flutter-Duck, with a last instinct of self-defence ere consciousness left her, and she fell forward.
"Silence," Lewis began, but there was an awful desolation at his heart and the salt of blood was in his mouth as he caught the falling form. The candlestick rolled to the ground, and the group was left in the heavy shadows of the staircase and the cold blast from the open door.
"God have mercy on me and the poor children! I knew all along it would come to that!" wailed Emanuel's wife.
"And I advanced him his week's money on Monday," Lewis remembered in the agony of the moment.
CHAPTER IV.
POOR FLUTTER-DUCK.
"Her cap blew off, her gown blew up,
And a whirlwind cleared the larder."
—Tennyson: The Goose.
It was New Year's Eve.