TO-MORROW
Page: 13

servant?" he asked impatiently one mild after-
noon. She had thrown something over her head to
run out for a while.

"I don't know," said the pale Bessie, wearily,
staring away with her heavy-lidded, grey, and un-
expectant glance. There were always smudgy
shadows under her eyes, and she did not seem able
to see any change or any end to her life.

"You wait till you get married, my dear," said
her only friend, drawing closer to the fence.
"Harry will get you one."

His hopeful craze seemed to mock her own want
of hope with so bitter an aptness that in her ner-
vous irritation she could have screamed at him out-
right. But she only said in self-mockery, and
speaking to him as though he had been sane,
"Why, Captain Hagberd, your son may not even
want to look at me."

He flung his head back and laughed his throaty
affected cackle of anger.

"What! That boy? Not want to look at the
only sensible girl for miles around? What do you
think I am here for, my dear--my dear--my dear?
. . . What? You wait. You just wait. You'll
see to-morrow. I'll soon--"

"Bessie! Bessie! Bessie!" howled old Carvil in-
side. "Bessie!--my pipe!" That fat blind man
had given himself up to a very lust of laziness. He
would not lift his hand to reach for the things she
took care to leave at his very elbow. He would not
move a limb; he would not rise from his chair, he
would not put one foot before another, in that par-
lour (where he knew his way as well as if he had his
sight), without calling her to his side and hanging
all his atrocious weight on her shoulder. He would
not eat one single mouthful of food without her
close attendance. He had made himself helpless
beyond his affliction, to enslave her better. She
stood still for a moment, setting her teeth in the
dusk, then turned and walked slowly indoors.

Captain Hagberd went back to his spade. The
shouting in Carvil's cottage stopped, and after a
while the window of the parlour downstairs was lit
up. A man coming from the end of the street with
a firm leisurely step passed on, but seemed to have
caught sight of Captain Hagberd, because he