The little household got deeper and deeper into debt, and towards the end of the time Louise would sometimes spend the whole day away from home without a word of explanation.

So great was his nervous terror--strong, broad fellow that he was--of that pent-up fury in her, which a touch might have unloosed, that he never questioned her.

At last the inevitable end came.

He got home one summer evening to find the house empty and ransacked, the children--little things of five and two--sitting crying in the desolate kitchen, and a crowd of loud-voiced, indignant neighbours round the door.

To look for her would have been absurd.