"It's very unkind of you to say such dreadful things, Mr. Sheldon," she whimpered presently; "you know very well that my marriage with Tom was pa's doing, and not mine. I'm sure if I'd known how he would stay out night after night, and come home in such dreadful states time after time, I never would have consented to marry him."
"Wouldn't you?—O yes, you would. If you were a widow to-morrow, and free to marry again, you would choose just such another man as Tom—a man who laughs loud, and pays flourishing compliments, and drives a gig with a high-stepping horse. That's the sort of man women like, and that's the sort of man you'd marry."
"I'm sure I shouldn't marry at all," answered Mrs. Halliday, in a voice that was broken by little gasping sobs. "I have seen enough of the misery of married life. But I don't want Tom to die, unkind as he is to me. People are always saying that he won't make old bones—how horrid it is to talk of a person's bones!—and I'm sure I sometimes make myself wretched about him, as he knows, though he doesn't thank me for it."
And here Mrs Halliday's sobs got the better of her utterance, and Mr.
Sheldon was fain to say something of a consolatory nature.
"Come, come," he said, "I won't tease you any more. That's against the laws of hospitality, isn't it?—only there are some things which you can't expect a man to forget, you know. However, let bygones be bygones. As for poor old Tom, I daresay he'll live to be a hale, hearty old man, in spite of the croakers. People always will croak about something; and it's a kind of fashion to say that a big, hearty, six-foot man is a fragile blossom likely to be nipped by any wintry blast. Come, come, Mrs. Halliday, your husband mustn't discover that I've been making you cry when he comes home. He may be home early this evening, perhaps; and if he is, we'll have an oyster supper, and a chat about old times."
Mrs. Halliday shook her head dolefully.
"It's past ten o'clock already," she said, "and I don't suppose Tom will be home till after twelve. He doesn't like my sitting up for him; but I wonder what time he would come home if I didn't sit up for him?"
"Let's hope for the best," exclaimed Mr. Sheldon cheerfully. "I'll go and see about the oysters."
"Don't get them for me, or for Tom," protested Mrs. Halliday; "he will have had his supper when he comes home, you may be sure, and I couldn't eat a morsel of anything."
To this resolution Mrs. Halliday adhered; so the dentist was fain to abandon all jovial ideas in relation to oysters and pale ale. But he did not go back to his mechanical dentistry. He sat opposite his visitor, and watched her, silently and thoughtfully, for some time as she worked. She had brushed away her tears, but she looked very peevish and miserable, and took out her watch several times in an hour. Mr. Sheldon made two or three feeble attempts at conversation, but the talk languished and expired on each occasion, and they sat on in silence.