Pennyloaf had now but one child to look after, a girl of two years, a feeble thing.  Her own state was wretched; professedly recovered from illness, she felt so weak, so low-spirited, that the greater part of her day was spent in crying.  The least exertion was too much for her; but for frequent visits from Jane Snowdon she must have perished for very lack of wholesome food.  She was crying when startled by her husband’s entrance, and though she did her best to hide the signs of it, Bob saw.

‘When are you going to stop that?’ he shouted.

She shrank away, looking at him with fear in her red eyes.

‘Stop your snivelling, and get me some tea!’

It was only of late that Pennyloaf had come to regard him with fear.  His old indifference and occasional brutality of language had made her life a misery, but she had never looked for his return home with anything but anxious longing.  Now the anticipation was mingled with dread.  He not only had no care for her, not only showed that he felt her a burden upon him; his disposition now was one of hatred, and the kind of hatred which sooner or later breaks out in ferocity.  Bob would not have come to this pass—­at all events not so soon—­if he had been left to the dictates of his own nature; he was infected by the savagery of the woman who had taken possession of him.  Her lust of cruelty crept upon him like a disease, the progress of which was hastened by all the circumstances of his disorderly life.  The man was conscious of his degradation; he knew how he had fallen ever since he began criminal practices; he knew the increasing hopelessness of his resolves to have done with dangers and recover his peace of mind.  The loss of his daily work, in consequence of irregularity, was the last thing needed to complete his ruin.  He did not even try to get new employment, feeling that such a show of honest purpose was useless.  Corruption was eating to his heart; from every interview with Clem he came away a feebler and a baser being.  And upon the unresisting creature who shared his home he had begun to expend the fury of his self-condemnation.

He hated her because Clem bade him do so.  He hated her because her suffering rebuked him, because he must needs be at the cost of keeping her alive, because he was bound to her.

As she moved painfully about the room he watched her with cruel, dangerous eyes.  There was a thought tormenting his brain, a terrifying thought he had pledged himself not to dismiss, and it seemed to exasperate him against Pennyloaf.  He had horrible impulses, twitches along his muscles; every second the restraint of keeping in one position grew more unendurable, yet he feared to move.

Pennyloaf had the ill-luck to drop a saucer, and it broke on the floor.  In the same instant he leapt up and sprang on her, seized her brutally by the shoulders and flung her with all his force against the nearest wall.  At her scream the child set up a shrill cry, and this increased his rage.  With his clenched fist he dealt blow after blow at the half-prostrate woman, speaking no word, but uttering a strange sound, such as might come from some infuriate animal.  Pennyloaf still screamed, till at length the door was thrown open and their neighbour, Mrs. Griffin, showed herself.