He held it under Isaac’s staring eyes, pointing to the little scratched cross in the corner.

’’Ere’s another, John—­two on ’em,’ said Saunders, pulling out a second and a third.

John, in a passion of hope, identified them both.

‘Then,’ said Saunders, slapping the table solemnly, ’theer’s nobbut one more thing to say—­an sorry I am to say it.  Them coins, Isaac’—­he pointed a slow finger at Bessie, whose white, fierce face moved involuntarily—­’them ’arf-crowns wor paid across the bar lasst night, or the night afore, at Dawson’s, by yor wife, as is now stannin there, an she’ll deny it if she can!’

For an instant the whole group preserved their positions—­the breath suspended on their lips.

Then Isaac strode up to his wife, and gripped her by the arms.

‘Did yer do it?’ he asked her.

He held her, looking into her eyes, Slowly she sank away from him; she would have fallen, but for a chair that stood beside her.

‘Oh, yer brute!’ she said, turning her head to Saunders an instant, and speaking under her breath, with a kind of sob.  ‘Yer brute!’

Isaac walked to the door, and threw it open.

‘Per’aps yer’ll go,’ he said, grimly. 
And the three went, without a word.

SCENE V

So the husband and wife were left together in the cottage room.  The door had no sooner closed on Saunders and his companions than Isaac was seized with that strange sense of walking amid things unreal upon a wavering earth which is apt to beset the man who has any portion of the dreamer’s temperament, under any sudden rush of circumstance.  He drew his hand across his brow, bewildered.  The fire leapt and chattered in the grate; the newly-washed tea-things on the table shone under the lamp; the cat lay curled, as usual, on the chair where he sat after supper to read his Christian World; yet all things were not the same.  What had changed?

Then across poor John’s rifled box he saw his wife sitting rigid on the chair where he had left her.

He came and sat down at the corner of the table, close to her, his chin on his hand.

‘’Ow did yer spend it?’ he said, startled, as the words came out, by his own voice, so grinding and ugly was the note of it.

Her miserable eyes travelled over his face, seeking as it were, for some promise, however faint, of future help and succour, however distant.

Apparently she saw none, for her own look flamed to fresh defiance.

‘I didn’t spend it.  Saunders wor lyin.’

‘’Ow did yer get them half-crowns?’

’I got ’em at Bedford.  Mr. Grimstone give ’em me.’

Isaac looked at her hard, his shame burning into his heart.  This was how she had got her money for the gin.  Of course, she had lied to him the night before, in her account of her fall, and of that mark on her forehead, which still showed, a red disfigurement, under the hair she had drawn across it.  The sight of it, of her, began to excite in him a quick loathing.  He was at bottom a man of violent passions, and in the presence of evil-doing so flagrant, so cruel—­of a household ruin so complete—­his religion failed him.