"What did he say ?" he repeated.
Across Sally's mind pictures were rushing in kaleidoscope.

The remembrance of Mr.Arthur as he had left her at the door and turned away, shuffling his steps along the pathway--the sight of Janet and herself, with heads raised from the pillow, listening to the muffled, disordered sounds in the next room--the recollection of Mr.Arthur's face the next morning as she had passed him in the hall, the eyes dull--steam, as it were, upon a window-pane--and the unhealthy shadows beneath.

He had grudged her a good morning, but that was all, and she had scarcely seen him since then.

He had been out every evening.
"He said very little," she replied, "but I know he felt it very much." "How do you know ?" "Well, that night when he came in--" the words refused utterance.
She looked up quaintly, appealing to him, desiring to be understood without further explanation.
"Drunk ?" said Traill.
She nodded.
"Poor devil!" A thousand apprehensions fled--darkening--across her face.

So pass a flight of starlings with a thousand whirring wings that sweep out light of the sun.
"You think I treated him badly ?" "No, I didn't say so." "But you think it ?" She begged eagerly, importunately.
"No, no, my dear child; no.