On his arrival, at midday, after eight months' absence in France, he found that his wife had sold or pawned practically everything in the place, and that the lady herself was in the violent phase of intoxication.

His natural remonstrances not being received with due meekness, a quarrel arose from which the lady emerged victorious.

She laid her poor husband out with a poker.

They could not keep him in hospital.

He shied at an immediate renewal of conjugal life.