With gentle womanly tact Belle saw that the loss of her hair was a subject replete with bitter anguish, and turning to the children she took them in her lap and interested and amused them by telling beautiful fairy stories.  In a short time Mary’s composure returned, and she said, “Miss Belle, I can now tell you how I lost my hair.  Last night my husband, or the wreck of what was once my husband, came home.  His eyes were wild and bloodshot; his face was pale and haggard, his gait uneven, and his hand trembling.  I have seen him suffering from Manipaotu and dreaded lest he should have a returning of it.  Mrs. Graham had just stepped out, and there was no one here but myself and children.  He held in his hand a pair of shears, and approached my bedside.  I was ready to faint with terror, when he exclaimed, ’Mary I must have liquor or I shall go wild,’ he caught my hair in his hand; I was too feeble to resist, and in a few minutes he had cut every lock from my head, and left it just as you see it.”

“Oh, what a pity, and what a shame.”

“Oh, Miss Gordon do you think the men who make our laws ever stop to consider the misery, crime and destruction that flow out of the liquor traffic?  I have done all I could to induce him to abstain, and he has abstained several months at a time and then suddenly like a flash of lightning the temptation returns and all his resolutions are scattered like chaff before the wind.  I have been blamed for living with him, but Miss Belle were you to see him in his moments of remorse, and hear his bitter self reproach, and his earnest resolutions to reform, you would as soon leave a drowning man to struggle alone in the water as to forsake him in his weakness when every one else has turned against him, and if I can be the means of saving him, the joy for his redemption will counterbalance all that I have suffered as a drunkard’s wife.”

Chapter XI

[Text missing.]

Chapter XII

[Text missing.]

Chapter XIII

John Anderson’s Saloon

  "The end of these things is death."

“Why do you mix that liquor with such care and give it to that child?  You know he is not going to pay you for it?”

“I am making an investment.”

“How so?”

“Why you see that boy’s parents are very rich, and in course of time he will be one of my customers.”

“Well!  John Anderson as old a sinner as I am, I wouldn’t do such a thing for my right hand.”

“What’s the harm?  You are one of my best customers, did liquor ever harm you?”

“Yes it does harm me, and when I see young men beginning to drink, I feel like crying out, ’Young man you are in danger, don’t put your feet in the terrible flood, for ten to one you will be swamped.’”