‘O, you have, have you?’ After a few minutes he rose very deliberately and walked upstairs into his bedroom.  Janet had often been scolded before for not laying out his clothes, and she thought now, not without some wonder, that this attention of hers had brought him to compliance.

Presently he called out, ‘Janet!’ and she went upstairs.

‘Here!  Take that!’ he said, as soon as she reached the door, flinging at her the coat she had laid out.  ’Another time, leave me to do as I please, will you?’

The coat, flung with great force, only brushed her shoulder, and fell some distance within the drawing-room, the door of which stood open just opposite.  She hastily retreated as she saw the waistcoat coming, and one by one the clothes she had laid out were all flung into the drawing-room.

Janet’s face flushed with anger, and for the first time in her life her resentment overcame the long cherished pride that made her hide her griefs from the world.  There are moments when by some strange impulse we contradict our past selves—­fatal moments, when a fit of passion, like a lava stream, lays low the work of half our lives.  Janet thought, ’I will not pick up the clothes; they shall lie there until the visitors come, and he shall be ashamed of himself.’

There was a knock at the door, and she made haste to seat herself in the drawing-room, lest the servant should enter and remove the clothes, which were lying half on the table and half on the ground.  Mr. Lowme entered with a less familiar visitor, a client of Dempster’s, and the next moment Dempster himself came in.

His eye fell at once on the clothes, and then turned for an instant with a devilish glance of concentrated hatred on Janet, who, still flushed and excited, affected unconsciousness.  After shaking hands with his visitors he immediately rang the bell.

‘Take those clothes away,’ he said to the servant, not looking at Janet again.

During dinner, she kept up her assumed air of indifference, and tried to seem in high spirits, laughing and talking more than usual.  In reality, she felt as if she had defied a wild beast within the four walls of his den, and he was crouching backward in preparation for his deadly spring.  Dempster affected to take no notice of her, talked obstreperously, and drank steadily.

About eleven the party dispersed, with the exception of Mr. Budd, who had joined them after dinner, and appeared disposed to stay drinking a little longer.  Janet began to hope that he would stay long enough for Dempster to become heavy and stupid, and so to fall asleep down-stairs, which was a rare but occasional ending of his nights.  She told the servants to sit up no longer, and she herself undressed and went to bed, trying to cheat her imagination into the belief that the day was ended for her.  But when she lay down, she became more intensely awake than ever.  Everything she had taken this evening seemed only to stimulate her senses and her apprehensions to new vividness.  Her heart beat violently, and she heard every sound in the house.