"Whining, are you?" said the brute, furiously. "I'll teach you to complain of me. Take that, and that!" and he struck the woman two brutal blows with his fist. One, glancing, struck the child, who began to cry. This further irritated Bill, who, seizing his wife by the shoulders, thrust her out on the landing.
"There, stay there with the cursed brat!" he growled. "I mean to have one quiet night."
The wretched wife crept down stairs, and out into the street, scarcely knowing what she did. She was not wholly destitute of spirit, and though she might have forgiven personal injury, felt incensed by the treatment of her innocent child.
"My poor baby!" she said, pitifully, "must you suffer because your father is a brute? May Heaven avenge our wrongs! Sooner or later it will."
She sat down on some steps near by; the air was chilly, and she shivered with the cold, but she tried to shelter her babe as well as she could. She attracted the attention of a boy who was walking slowly by.
It was Dan, who had at a distance witnessed Talbot's encounter with the burglars, and his subsequent friendly companionship with them, and was trying to ascertain the character of the place which he visited.
"What's the matter with you?" asked Dan, in a tone of sympathy.
"What's the matter with you?" asked Dan, in a tone of sympathy.
"My husband has thrust me out of doors with my poor baby."