“You know, Louis, you’re an awful duffer!” she said, and turned away.  But he lifted her over the wet floor into bed and, as he blew out the candle, told the mosquitoes to go to hell, and kissed her face and her hands, he thought he had effectually stilled her queer ethical doubtings.  And she felt very much alone and unguided, and not at all able to stand up straight without a prop as she had preached to him.

For the next few days Louis was depressed and restless.  She did not understand him.  She was not yet aware that his hunger came on in periodic attacks and thought that she must have hurt him in some way to make him so wretched.  She tried to be especially gentle to him, but he was rather difficult to please.  He developed a habit of womanish, almost shrewish, nagging that astounded her; he grumbled at his food, he grumbled at the discomforts of living in one room; he made her feel cheap when she kissed him by turning away and saying, “There, that’s enough, now!”; he found fault with her clothes and, one morning as she was dressing, said he was tired of seeing her cleaning the room; she seemed to think that that was all he needed—­a nurse and a servant, since she never troubled to make herself attractive to him.  Several times, coming from doing her cooking in the basement, she found Mr. King slinking along the top landing, but did not associate him with Louis.  Several times she thought she smelt whisky, but told herself angrily that she was dreaming.  Then, one day, coming in from the Post Office, she found Louis gone.  One thing she noticed as she came along the landing was an empty bottle in the dark corner behind the door.  As soon as she opened the door she saw three whisky bottles, empty, on the mantelpiece.  On a piece of paper he had written: 

“Get all the satisfaction you can out of these, old girl.  I’m off.”

She felt cold with horror, but there was nothing she could do.  Mrs. King said that she had seen him go out at two o’clock.  And that was all she could learn.  For the rest of the afternoon and evening she was almost frantic with fear.  But the money was not touched.  She could not imagine what had happened until Mrs. King told her that Mr. King had confessed to getting letters containing money from the Post Office for Louis, and buying him whisky.  Marcella ran out of the house, almost crazed with fright, to look for him.  When she had only gone a few hundred yards she ran back, afraid he might come in and need her.  It was not until after midnight that a violent knocking on the front door roused Mrs. King and sent Marcella down the stairs in a panic.

It was Louis.  His eyes were wild, his clothes muddy.  He lurched past Mrs. King and, making a great effort, managed to get upstairs.

In the room, instinct made Marcella shut and lock the door.  He had thrown himself on the bed, his muddy boots on the coverlet.  He lay there breathing heavily for awhile until he was violently sick.