“No, no,” her voice suddenly grew animated; “for God’s sake, William, don’t cry over it!  You are not a David.”  She shivered, as a trick of memory brought back to her the night in the harvest field when she had broken out in wrath against her least admired of Biblical heroes—­the same night on which she had first set eyes on this man, whose ring and whose bruise she wore.

“Do not use cheating words, either,” she went on.  “You were not overtaken by liquor; you went out to meet it, as you have gone night after night.  Call it by the straight name.  Listen:  I like you well enough, William, to help you, if I can—­indeed, I have tried.  But there seems to be something in drink which puts aside help:  the only fighting of any worth must come from the man himself—­is it not so?”

“I have fought, lass.”

“Drink up your tea, my man, and fight it again!  Come home to me earlier, and with a firmer step, and each night will be a victory, better worth than all the cries and sobbings in the world.”

He gazed at her stupidly as she put out a hand and laid it gently on his wrist.  He covered his eyes.

“I—­struck—­you!” he muttered.

She winced.  Startled by the sudden withdrawal of her touch, he lowered his hand and looked at her.  Her eyes, though brimming, met his steadily.

“Tears are for women,” she said.  “I must cry a little:  but see, I am not afraid.”

For some months after this he fought the drink; fought it steadily.  With Christmas came a relapse, through which she nursed him.  To her dismay she found the fit, during the few days that it lasted, more violent than before, and thought of the house swept and garnished and the devil returning with others worse than himself.  Her consolation was that at his worst now he seemed to turn to her, and depend on her—­almost to supplicate—­for help.  The struggle left them both exhausted:  but he had not attempted to beat her this time.  She tried to persuade herself that this meant amendment, and that the outbreaks would grow rarer and at length cease altogether.

Throughout the spring and summer of 1731 his health improved, and with it his kindness to her.  Indeed, she had not been so near happiness (or so she told herself) since her wedding day.  Another child was coming.  Hope, so often cut down, grew again in her heart.  And then—­

One forenoon in the second week of June—­a torrid, airless day—­he came home reeling.  For the moment a black fear fell on her that she would be too weak to wrestle with this attack; but she braced herself to meet it.

The next day her uncle called.  He was about to start on a long-planned journey to Epworth, taking his man with him; and having lately parted with his housekeeper, he had a proposal to make; that Hetty should sleep at Johnson’s Court and look after the house in his absence.

She shook her head.  Luckily her husband was out, drinking fiercely at some tavern, as she very well knew; but anything was better than his encountering Uncle Matthew just now.