He was standing in a short, sloping street of low two-storey dwelling-houses; they had areas, and steps ascending to the door. In the gloom he could see that the houses had the appearance of newness, and were the abodes of what one hears called “decent” working people--one would prefer some negative term. The top of the street was lost behind a sudden curve; at the lower end the flaring front of a public-house showed itself. Children were playing about in considerable numbers, for there was no regular traffic; before the public-house was an organ grinding “Ah, che la morte” in valse time. The air was bitterly cold, and the wind blew for rain. He had leisure to observe all this, for it was a couple of minutes before any one answered his knock. Just as he was about to repeat it the door opened, and a woman with a lighted candle, which she held back to protect it against the wind, presented herself. She was fat, and had a prodigious dewlap; on one side of her many-folded chin was a large hairy wart; she wore a black dress, much strained above the waist, with a dirty white apron--a most unprepossessing portress. “Is it Mr. Kingcut?” she asked in a thin, panting voice. “Why, an’ I was that moment sayin’ as it was time Mr. Kingcut come. I’m sure your sister’ll be glad to see you, poor thing! How’ll you get your luggidge in? She’s just lyin’ down a bit; I’ll go an’ tell her. The funeral’s been a bit too much for her; but I’ve got a nice ’addock down for her, an’ expectin’ your comin’. See, I’ll leave the candle on the banister, an’ you shall have a light in the front room in no time.” A man who loafed by assisted to move the boxes into the house, and Kingcote dismissed the cab, paying twice the due fare because a word of argument would just now have cost him agony. He left the candle guttering at the foot of the stairs, and entered a room of which the door stood open immediately on his left hand. There was a low fire in the grate; the candle outside helped him to discern a sofa which stood before the window, and on this he sank. A hissing sound came from below stairs, and the house was full of the odour of frying fish. There was asthmatic panting outside, and, with a lamp in her hand, the fat woman reappeared; she stood pressing one hand against her side, in the other holding the light so as to enable her to examine the new-comer. She talked, struggling with breathlessness. “Poor thing! She’s that done! It was hawful suddin, in a way, though we’d been a-expectin’ of it for weeks as you may say. It’s been a trial for poor Mrs. Jalland, that it have! She couldn’t seem to take comfort, not even when she saw him laid out. He was a good deal wasted away, poor man, but he had a pleasant look like on his face; he alius _was_ a pleasant-lookin’ man. An’ there’s some o’ the funeral beer left over, if you’d like----” Kingcote could have raved. He rose and went to the fire; then, as soon as he dared trust his voice, assured her that he wanted nothing.