He turned at the door. "God bless you!" he said. Then, as if caught in
an act to be atoned for, he hurried out into the street. From the door
she watched him till the curtains of dust rose up about him and hid him
from sight. When he came back to Wadgery months after he was a terrible
wreck; so much so that Vic could hardly look at him at first; and she
wished that she had left O'Fallen's as she threatened, and so have no
need to furnish any man swizzles. She knew he would never pull himself
together now. It was very weak of him, and horrible, but then . . .
When that thirst gets into the blood, and there's something behind the
man's life too--as Dicky Merritt said, "It's a case for the little black
angels."

Vic would not give him liquor. He got it, however, from other sources.
He was too far gone to feel any shame now. His sensibilities were all
blunted. One day he babbled over the bar-counter to O'Fallen, desiring
greatly that they should be reconciled. To that end he put down the last
shilling he had for a swizzle, and was so outrageously offended when
O'Fallen refused to take it, that the silver was immediately swept into
the till; and very soon, with his eye-glass to his eye, Mr. Jones was
drunk.

That was the occasion mentioned in the first sentence of this history,
when Vic was very angry.

The bar-room was full. Men were wondering why it was that the Postmaster
and the Little Milliner, who went to Magari ten days before, to get
married by the parson there, had not returned. While they talked and
speculated, the weekly coach from Magari came up slowly to the door, and,
strange to say, without a blast from the driver's horn. Dicky Merritt
and Company rushed out to ask news of the two truants, and were met with