time to time with agitated glances, as though expecting her father to enter, but soor the few scribbled lines, blotted by haste and the fall of an irrepressible
tear, were completed. She folded the ragged-edged sheet and thrust it in the envelope she had brought from upstairs. Then she addressed the envelope, copying each word carefully, and thrust it into the bosom of her dress; finally, with a pale face and palpitating heart, she resumed her bent position over her books and made pretence to study. But her precaution was unnecessary. No one entered the room during the whole evening. She was undiscovered and, early next morning, on her way to school, she posted the letter.
IV
JAMES BRODIE was awakening. No sun streamed through his window to stimulate gently his recumbent figure or set the golden motes swimming through straight rivers of light across his sleep-filled gaze.
Instead, a cold fine rain smirred the dripping panes, dulling the interior of the room to one drab monotone and meeting his half-opened eye like a melancholy reminder of his altered condition. He marked the unhappy aspect of the weather moodily, then from the window, his visible eye, now more fully opened to reveal the sticky, white coagulum at its corner, turned to the clock, and observing that the dim hands pointed to ten minutes past eight, ten minutes beyond his appointed but unkept hour of rising, grew more gloomy. To-day he would, he realised, be late at the office once again, would suffer another sharp rebuke from the upstart chief clerk who now attempted to control his working hours, who had threatened even to report him to the under manager should he fail to observe a more constant punctuality.
At this reflection his face, against the lighter background of the pillow, seemed to darken, the lines that marked it deepened like sharp incisions, and the eyes, losing their innate melancholy, were filled instead by a dull, morose obstinacy. Be damned to them all, he thought, they would not order him about; he would have another five minutes in bed in spite of the whole board of directors of the Latta Shipyard! He would, of course, make up the time by omitting to shave, which struck him now, as it frequently did, as a cunning way of defeating the powers which sought to move him to their rule and pattern of life. Such a ruse as this suited him too, in his own inclination, for he was now averse to shaving in the mornings, when his unsteady hand so often behaved erratically, trying his temper to control it, and on occasions making him gash his cheek. The early hours of the day never found him at his best for not only did his hand refuse to obey him, but his head ached, or his tongue felt like dry wood, or his stomach turned within him at the mere consideration of his breakfast. It was, he was well aware, the whisky which was responsible for these unwelcome visitations, and in this grey morning's light he felt, with a gloomy insight, that he must cut down his allowance. When he had made such resolutions in the past he had never, he told himself, been really serious, but now he must definitely make up his mind to take himself in hand, to drink nothing before dinner and thereafter to abstain until the evening, when he would be moderate, when indeed, he must be moderate if he were to please Nancy, whose favour was now of such vital necessity to him. Certainly she had been better disposed towards him during the last two days, and he reflected, with a more equable turn of mind, that although she had not come back to his room since their quarrel on the night of her visit to the aunt at Overton, the obvious reason which she had
advanced in excuse must surely be correct, in view of her recent kindness and more tolerant treatment of him. He could not do without Nancy! She had become as necessary to him and as indispensable as breath to his body, and for this reason alone he must be careful how he addressed himself to the bottle in future. Impossible that he should ever live without her! She would come to him again to-night, the fresher for his enforced abstinence, or he would know the reason why!
Some semblance of his old complacency seemed to flow into him at this last thought and, flinging off the bedclothes, he got out of bed; but as the cold air of the room struck his body he shivered, frowned, and losing his satisfied look, reached hurriedly for his clothes, which lay in a disordered heap upon a near-by qhair. He struggled into these garments with the utmost dispatch, giving his face alone some transient attention with water and soap before assuming his soiled linen collar, knotting his stringy tie and throwing on his baggy coat and waistcoat. The economy in time was considerable, for the whole process of dressing had not taken five minutes, and now he was ready, albeit after a fashion, to descend the stairs and consume his morning meal.
'Good mornin' to you, Brodie,' cried Nancy agreeably, as he entered the kitchen. 'You're on time all right to- day! How did ye sleep?'
'Not so weel as I would have liked,' he replied heavily. 'I was cold! Still, I've a feeling I'll be cosier to-night.'
'You're not blate so early in the mornin',' she answered, with a toss of her head. 'Sup up your porridge and be quiet.'
He considered the porridge with pursed lips and some show of repugnance as he exclaimed:
'I don't feel like them somehow, Nancy. They're heavy on a man's stomach at breakfast time. They might do for supper but I can't think of them the now. Have ye anything else?'
'I've got a nice, sweet kipper in the pan just done to a turn,' she cried complacently. 'Don't eat the porridge if ye're not in the mood. I'll get ye the other this very minute.'
He followed her active figure, observing the swirl of her skirts, the fluent movements of her neat feet and ankles as she rushed to carry out her words, and he was filled by a sudden appreciation of the marked improvement in her attitude towards him. She was coming near to him again, no longer looking at him with that sparkle of animosity in her eyes, but was even now running after him in a fashion strangely reminiscent of his wife's eagerness to serve him. He felt the comfort of being once more looked after with this devotion, especially as it came from his beloved but independent Nancy, and when she returned with the dish, he looked at her from the corner of his eyes and remarked:
'You're drawin' round to me again, I see. I can mind of mornings when some burnt porridge was good enough to fling at a poor man for his breakfast, but this juicy kipper is more to my taste, and your way o' lookin' at me is more to my likin' still. You're fond of me, Nancy, aren't ye?'
She gazed down at his tired face, lined, hollowed, disfigured by a two days' stubble of beard and split by a forced and unbefitting smile, envisaged his bowed and slovenly figure, his tremulous hands and uncared-for finger nails, and with a shrill little laugh, she cried:
'True enough, man! I've such a feelin' for ye now that I hardly like to own it. It fair makes my heart loup when I look at ye sometimes.'
His smile was extinguished, his eyes puckered intently, and he answered:
'It's a treat for me to hear ye say that, Nancy! I know it's downright wrong o' me to tell ye, but I can't help it, I've got to depend on ye now something extraordinar'.' Then, still disregarding his breakfast, he continued almost apologetically, as though he defended his conduct, 'I never would have believed I could draw to anybody so much. I didna think I was that kind o' man, but ye see, I had to do without for so lang that when when we came thegither weel ye've fair taken hold of me. That's pkfin truth. Ye're not angry at me for tellin' ye a' this, are ye now?'
'No! No!' she exclaimed hurriedly. 'Not a bit, Brodie. I should understand ye by this time. But come on now, don't waste the good kipper Pve taken the trouble to cook ye. I'm wantin' to hear how ye like it. And I’m anxious for ye to make a good breakfast, for you'll have to take your dinner out to-day.'
'Take my dinner out! What for?' he exclaimed, in some surprise.
'Ye were away at Overton only last week ye're surely not goin' to see that aunt o' yours again?'
'No, I'm not!' she cried, with a pert toss of her head, 'but she's comin' to see me! And I'm not wantin' you runnin' round after me, with her, that's a decent unsuspectin' body ay, and one that's fond o' me starin' the eyes out of her heid at your palavers. Ye can come home in the evenin'. Then I'll be ready for ye.'
He glared at her for a moment with a dark countenance, then, suddenly relaxing, he shook his head slowly. 'Damnation, woman! But ye have the cheek on ye. To think that you've got the length o' entertain! n' your friends in my house! Gad! It makes me see how far ye can go with me. I should have warmed the backside o' ye for doin' a thing like that without first askin' me but ye know I canna be angry with ye. It seems there's no end to the liberties you'll take with me.'
'What's the harm?' she demanded primly. 'Can an honest housekeeper body not see her relations if she wants to? It'll do ye good to have a snack outside; then I'll have a surprise all ready for ye when ye come.'
