Impressions upon the imagination, however, are but transitory, and a bad man acting under fear is not a free agent; his real character does not appear.  But as the images of the imagination fade, and the action of fear abates, the essential qualities of the man reassert themselves.

So, after a time, Tom Chuff began to grow weary of his new life; he grew lazy, and people began to say that he was catching hares, and pursuing his old contraband way of life, under the rose.

He came home one hard night, with signs of the bottle in his thick speech and violent temper.  Next day he was sorry, or frightened, at all events repentant, and for a week or more something of the old horror returned, and he was once more on his good behaviour.  But in a little time came a relapse, and another repentance, and then a relapse again, and gradually the return of old habits and the flooding in of all his old way of life, with more violence and gloom, in proportion as the man was alarmed and exasperated by the remembrance of his despised, but terrible, warning.

With the old life returned the misery of the cottage.  The smiles, which had begun to appear with the unwonted sunshine, were seen no more.  Instead, returned to his poor wife’s face the old pale and heartbroken look.  The cottage lost its neat and cheerful air, and the melancholy of neglect was visible.  Sometimes at night were overheard, by a chance passer-by, cries and sobs from that ill-omened dwelling.  Tom Chuff was now often drunk, and not very often at home, except when he came in to sweep away his poor wife’s earnings.

Tom had long lost sight of the honest old parson.  There was shame mixed with his degradation.  He had grace enough left when he saw the thin figure of “t’ sir” walking along the road to turn out of his way and avoid meeting him.  The clergyman shook his head, and sometimes groaned, when his name was mentioned.  His horror and regret were more for the poor wife than for the relapsed sinner, for her case was pitiable indeed.

Her brother, Jack Everton, coming over from Hexley, having heard stories of all this, determined to beat Tom, for his ill-treatment of his sister, within an inch of his life.  Luckily, perhaps, for all concerned, Tom happened to be away upon one of his long excursions, and poor Nell besought her brother, in extremity of terror, not to interpose between them.  So he took his leave and went home muttering and sulky.

Now it happened a few months later that Nelly Chuff fell sick.  She had been ailing, as heartbroken people do, for a good while.  But now the end had come.

There was a coroner’s inquest when she died, for the doctor had doubts as to whether a blow had not, at least, hastened her death.  Nothing certain, however, came of the inquiry.  Tom Chuff had left his home more than two days before his wife’s death.  He was absent upon his lawless business still when the coroner had held his quest.