of the clean-shaven face of the doctor, looking
wearier and more anxious than before. Then he rushed
downstairs like a lunatic, and running to the door he
tried to distract his thoughts by watching what; was
going on in the street. The shops were all shut, and
some rollicking boon companions came shouting along
from the public-house. He stayed at the door until
the stragglers had thinned down, and then came back
to his seat by the fire. In his dim brain he was
asking himself questions which had never intruded
themselves before. Where was the justice of it?
What had his sweet, innocent little wife done that
she should be used so? Why was nature so cruel? He
was frightened at his own thoughts, and yet wondered
that they had never occurred to him before.

As the early morning drew in, Johnson, sick at
heart and shivering in every limb, sat with his great
coat huddled round him, staring at the grey ashes and
waiting hopelessly for some relief. His face was
white and clammy, and his nerves had been numbed into
a half conscious state by the long monotony of
misery. But suddenly all his feelings leapt into
keen life again as he heard the bedroom door open and
the doctor's steps upon the stair. Robert Johnson
was precise and unemotional in everyday life, but he
almost shrieked now as he rushed forward to know if
it were over.

One glance at the stern, drawn face which met him