'Yes, mamma; we are in the dark. Papa is here. Oh, mamma, how wet you
are!'

'Yes, dear. It is raining. Get a light out of the kitchen, Jane, and I
will go upstairs in two minutes.' Then when Jane was gone, the wife made
her way in the dark over to her husband's side, and spoke a word to him.
'Josiah,' she said, 'will you not speak to me?'

'What should I speak about? Where have you been?'

'I have been to Silverbridge. I have been to Mr Walker. He, at any
rate, is very kind'

'I don't want his kindness. I want no man's kindness. Mr Walker is the
attorney, I believe. Kind indeed!'

'I mean considerate. Josiah, let us do the best we can in this trouble.
We have had others as heavy before.'

'But none to crush me as this will crush me. Well; what am I to do? Am
I to go to prison--tonight?' At this moment his daughter returned with a
candle, and the mother could not make her answer at once. It was a
wretched, poverty-stricken room. By degrees the carpet had disappeared,
which had been laid down some nine or ten years since, when they had
first come to Hogglestock, and which even then had not been new. Now
nothing but a poor fragment of it remained in front of the fire-place.
In the middle of the room there was a table which had once been large;
but one flap of it was gone altogether, and the other flap sloped
grievously towards the floor, the weakness of old age having fallen into
its legs. There were two or three smaller tables about, but they stood