Page:Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories (1915).djvu/149

 thus with the gun. And now I am afraid to shoot.'"

"'My dear,' I said. She was so helpless and frightened that she seemed like a young girl to me, though she was the mother of the Child of our Hope. 'Have you no one to kill the chicken for you? Is there no servant?'

"'I had one,' she said, 'but she went away from me last week. She would not stay, because'

"She stopped, seeming to think that I would guess the reason. I did not wish to try, because the thing most in my mind was the need of getting the chicken killed. I asked:

"'Where is your husband?' knowing that there must be a husband somewhere because she had a gun.

"'He! Bah! He is in there asleep.'

"Afterwards, when I went into the house, I understood her scorn. The man lay drunk upon the floor of the sitting-room. His face was bloated and coarse almost beyond belief; but I knew him. You will remember hearing of James Cane, the brilliant barrister who made the speeches touched with genius. He was a Member of Parliament for a while, though it was never possible to understand how he, for he had genius, could join himself to those or go there. We lost sight of him; but I always thought that we should hear of him again. Well, it was there I found him, drunk, while his child lay sick. It was a very sad thing to me to see him there. But I understood how he might be