At the door he turned.

’There’d be no harm if I take Mrs. Clay and the children, would there?’

‘I am sure they will thank you, Mr. Dabbs.’

It did not matter now that there was a clear understanding.

At a little distance from the house door Daniel found Mrs. Clay waiting.

‘No good,’ he said cheerlessly.

‘She won’t go?’

‘No.  But I’ll take you and the children, if you’ll come.’

Kate did not immediately reply.  A grave disappointment showed itself in her face.

‘Can’t be helped,’ Daniel replied to her look.  ‘I did my best’

Kate accepted his invitation, and they arranged the hour of meeting.  As she approached the house to enter, flow looking ill-tempered, a woman of her acquaintance met her.  After a few minutes’ conversation they walked away together.

Emma sat up till twelve o’clock.  The thought on which she was brooding was not one to make the time go lightly; it was—­how much and how various evil can be wrought by a single act of treachery.  And the instance in her mind was more fruitful than her knowledge allowed her to perceive.

Kate appeared shortly after midnight.  She had very red cheeks and very bright eyes, and her mood was quarrelsome.  She sat down on the bed and began to talk of Daniel Dabbs, as she had often done already, in a maundering way.  Emma kept silence; she was beginning to undress.

‘There’s a man with money,’ said Kate, her voice getting louder; ’money, I tell you, and you’ve only to say a word.  And you won’t even be civil to him.  You’ve got no feeling; you don’t care for nobody but yourself.  I’ll take the children and leave you to go your own way, that’s what I’ll do!’

It was hard to make no reply, but Emma succeeded in commanding herself.  The maundering talk went on for more than an hour.  Then came the wretched silence of night.

Emma did not sleep.  She was too wobegone to find a tear.  Life stood before her in the darkness like a hideous spectre.

In the morning she told her sister that Daniel had asked her to marry him and that she had refused.  It was best to have that understood.  Kate heard with black brows.  But even yet she knew something of shame when she remembered her return home the night before; it kept her from giving utterance to her anger.

There followed a scene such as had occurred two or three times during the past six months.  Emma threw aside all her coldness, and with passionate entreaty besought her sister to draw back from the gulf’s edge whilst there was yet time.  For her own sake, for the sake of Bertie and the little girl, by the memory of that dear dead one who lay in the waste cemetery!

’Pity me, too!  Think a little of me, Kate dear!  You are driving me to despair.’

Kate was moved, she had not else been human.  The children were looking up with frightened, wondering eyes.  She hid her face and muttered promises of amendment.