"But I thought you didn't see him any more; you promised us you wouldn't." "I couldn't help it.... It was quite an accident. One day, coming back from church with Annie--that's the new housemaid--he came up and spoke to us." "What did he say?" "He said, 'How are ye?... Who'd thought of meeting you!'" "And what did you say?" "I said I didn't want to have nothing to do with him. Annie walked on, and then he said he was very sorry, that it was bad luck that drove him to it." "And you believed him?" "I daresay it is very foolish of me. But one can't help oneself. Did you ever really care for a man?" And without waiting for an answer, Sarah continued her babbling chatter. She had asked him not to come after her; she thought he was sorry for what he had done. She mentioned incidentally that he had been away in the country and had come back with very particular information regarding a certain horse for the Cesarewitch. If the horse won he'd be all right. At last Esther's patience was tired out. "It must be getting late," she said, looking towards where the sun was setting. The river rippled, and the edges of the warehouses had perceptibly softened; a wind, too, had come up with the tide, and the women shivered as they passed under the arch of Waterloo Bridge. They ascended a flight of high steps and walked through a passage into the Strand. "I was miserable enough with him; we used to have hardly anything to eat; but I'm more miserable away from him. Esther, I know you'll laugh at me, but I'm that heart-broken... I can't live without him... I'd do anything for him." "He isn't worth it." "That don't make no difference. You don't know what love is; a woman who hasn't loved a man who don't love her, don't. We used to live near here. Do you mind coming up Drury Lane? I should like to show you the house." "I'm afraid it will be out of our way." "No, it won't. Round by the church and up Newcastle Street.... Look, there's a shop we used to go to sometimes. I've eaten many a good sausage and onions in there, and that's a pub where we often used to go for a drink." The courts and alleys had vomited their population into the Lane. Fat girls clad in shawls sat around the slum opening nursing their babies. Old women crouched in decrepit doorways, fumbling their aprons; skipping ropes whirled in the roadway. A little higher up a vendor of cheap ices had set up his store and was rapidly absorbing all the pennies of the neighborhood. Esther and Sarah turned into a dilapidated court, where a hag argued the price of trotters with a family leaning one over the other out of a second-floor window. This was the block in which Sarah had lived. A space had been cleared by the builder, and the other side was shut in by the great wall of the old theatre.