TO-MORROW
Page: 25

the wall.

"No!" he raged. "He expects! Expects ME
--for his rotten money! . . . . Who wants his
home? Mad--not he! Don't you think. He
wants his own way. He wanted to turn me into a
miserable lawyer's clerk, and now he wants to make
of me a blamed tame rabbit in a cage. Of me! Of
me!" His subdued angry laugh frightened her
now.

"The whole world ain't a bit too big for me to
spread my elbows in, I can tell you--what's your
name--Bessie--let alone a dam' parlour in a hutch.
Marry! He wants me to marry and settle! And
as likely as not he has looked out the girl too--
dash my soul! And do you know the Judy, may
I ask?"

She shook all over with noiseless dry sobs; but
he was fuming and fretting too much to notice her
distress. He bit his thumb with rage at the mere
idea. A window rattled up.

"A grinning, information fellow," pronounced
old Hagberd dogmatically, in measured tones.
And the sound of his voice seemed to Bessie to make
the night itself mad--to pour insanity and dis-
aster on the earth. "Now I know what's wrong
with the people here, my dear. Why, of course!
With this mad chap going about. Don't you have
anything to do with him, Bessie. Bessie, I say!"

They stood as if dumb. The old man fidgeted
and mumbled to himself at the window. Suddenly
he cried, piercingly: "Bessie--I see you. I'll tell
Harry."

She made a movement as if to run away, but
stopped and raised her hands to her temples.
Young Hagberd, shadowy and big, stirred no more
than a man of bronze. Over their heads the crazy
night whimpered and scolded in an old man's voice.

"Send him away, my dear. He's only a vaga-
bond. What you want is a good home of your own.
That chap has no home--he's not like Harry. He
can't be Harry. Harry is coming to-morrow. Do
you hear? One day more," he babbled more ex-
citedly; "never you fear--Harry shall marry
you."

His voice rose very shrill and mad against the
regular deep soughing of the swell coiling heavily
about the outer face of the sea-wall.

"He will have to. I shall make him, or if not"
--he swore a great oath--"I'll cut him off with a