Farwell did not engage her in conversation for a few days, nor did she make any advances to him. She read through _No. 5 John Street_ within three evenings; it held her with a horrible fascination. Her first plunge into realistic literature left her shocked as by a cold bath. In the early days, at Lympton, she had subsisted mainly on Charlotte Young and Rhoda Broughton. In India, the mess having a subscription at Mudie's, she had had good opportunities of reading; but, for no particular reason, except perhaps that she was newly married and busy with regimental nothings, she had ceased to read anything beyond the _Sketch_ and the _Sporting and Dramatic_. Thus she had never heard of the 'common people' except as persons born to minister to the needs of the rich. She had never felt any interest in them, for they spoke a language that was not hers. _No. 5 John Street_, coming to her a long time after the old happy days, when she herself was struggling in the mire, was a horrible revelation; it showed her herself, and herself not as 'Tilda towering over fate but as Nancy withering in the indiarubber works for the benefit of the Ridler system. She read feverishly by the light of a candle. At times she was repelled by the vulgarity of Low Covey, by the grossness which seemed to revel in poverty and dirt. But when she cast her eyes round her own bare walls, looked at her sheetless bed, a shiver ran over her. 'These are my people,' she said aloud. The candle, clamouring for the snuffers, guttered, sank low, nearly went out. Shivering again before the omen, she trimmed the wick. She returned the book to Farwell by slipping it on the table next day. He took it without a word but returned at half past six as before. 'Well?' he asked with a faint smile. 'Thank you so much,' said Victoria. 'It's wonderful.' 'Wonderful indeed? Most commonplace, don't you think?' 'Oh, no,' said Victoria. 'It's extraordinary, it's like . . . like light.' Farwell's eyes suddenly glittered. 'Ah,' he said dreamily, 'light! light in this, the outer darkness.' Victoria looked at him, a question in her eyes. 'If only we could all see,' he went on. 'Then, as by a touch of a magician's wand, flowers would crowd out the thistles, the thistles that the asses eat and thank their God for. It is in our hands to make this the Happy Valley and we make it the Valley of the Shadow of Death.' He paused for a moment. Victoria felt her pulse quicken. 'Yes,' she said, 'I think I understand. It's because we don't understand that we suffer. We're not cruel, are we? we're stupid.' 'Stupid?' A ferocious intonation had come into Farwell's voice. 'I should say so! Forty million men, women and children sweat their lives out day by day so that four million may live idly and become too heavy even to think. I could forgive them if they thought, but the world contains only two types: Lazarus with poor man's gout and Dives with fatty degeneration of the brain.'