Page 307 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

unwilling to be softened by such shallow device, but even-
tually felt constrained to say something. ‘Have you been
drinking again?’ he asked, ‘or what’s the matter with you?
Tell me what it is you want, and have done with it. I don’t
know what possessed me to come here at all.’
Sarah sat upright, and dashed away her tears with one
passionate hand.
‘I am ill, can’t you see, you fool!’ said she. ‘The news has
unnerved me. If I have been drinking, what then? It’s noth-
ing to you, is it?’
‘Oh, no,’ returned the other, ‘it’s nothing to me. You are
the principal party concerned. If you choose to bloat your-
self with brandy, do it by all means.’
‘You don’t pay for it, at any rate!’ said she, with quickness
of retaliation which showed that this was not the only occa-
sion on which they had quarrelled.
‘Come,’ said Frere, impatiently brutal, ‘get on. I can’t stop
here all night.’
She suddenly rose, and crossed to where he was stand-
ing.
‘Maurice, you were very fond of me once.’
‘Once,’ said Maurice.
‘Not so very many years ago.’
‘Hang it!’ said he, shifting his arm from beneath her hand,
‘don’t let us have all that stuff over again. It was before you
took to drinking and swearing, and going raving mad with
passion, any way.’
‘Well, dear,’ said she, with her great glittering eyes be-
lying the soft tones of her voice, ‘I suffered for it, didn’t I?

0 For the Term of His Natural Life