One evening they had been sitting at Waterloo Station; it was foggy outside--a thick, yellow November fog, which filled the waiting-room, entering the lungs, and making the mouth taste nasty and the eyes smart. It was about half-past eleven, and the station was unusually quiet; a few passengers, in wraps and overcoats, were walking to and fro, waiting for the last train, and one or two porters were standing about yawning. Liza and Jim had remained for an hour in perfect silence, filled with a gloomy unhappiness, as of a great weight on their brains. Liza was sitting forward, with her elbows on her knees, resting her face on her hands. 'I wish I was straight,' she said at last, not looking up. 'Well, why won't yer come along of me altogether, an' you'll be arright then?' he answered. 'Na, that's no go; I can't do thet.' He had often asked her to live with him entirely, but she had always refused. 'You can come along of me, an' I'll tike a room in a lodgin' 'ouse in 'Olloway, an' we can live there as if we was married.' 'Wot abaht yer work?' 'I can get work over the other side as well as I can 'ere. I'm abaht sick of the wy things is goin' on.' 'So am I; but I can't leave mother.' 'She can come, too.' 'Not when I'm not married. I shouldn't like 'er ter know as I'd--as I'd gone wrong.' 'Well, I'll marry yer. Swop me bob, I wants ter badly enough.' 'Yer can't; yer married already.' 'Thet don't matter! If I give the missus so much a week aht of my screw, she'll sign a piper ter give up all clime ter me, an' then we can get spliced. One of the men as I works with done thet, an' it was arright.' Liza shook her head. 'Na, yer can't do thet now; it's bigamy, an' the cop tikes yer, an' yer gits twelve months' 'ard for it.' 'But swop me bob, Liza, I can't go on like this. Yer knows the missus--well, there ain't no bloomin' doubt abaht it, she knows as you an' me are carryin' on, an' she mikes no bones abaht lettin' me see it.' 'She don't do thet?' 'Well, she don't exactly sy it, but she sulks an' won't speak, an' then when I says anythin' she rounds on me an' calls me all the nimes she can think of. I'd give 'er a good 'idin', but some'ow I don't like ter! She mikes the plice a 'ell ter me, an' I'm not goin' ter stand it no longer!' 'You'll ave ter sit it, then; yer can't chuck it.' 'Yus I can, an' I would if you'd come along of me. I don't believe you like me at all, Liza, or you'd come.' She turned towards him and put her arms round his neck. 'Yer know I do, old cock,' she said. 'I like yer better than anyone else in the world; but I can't go awy an' leave mother.' 'Bli'me me if I see why; she's never been much ter you. She mikes yer slave awy ter pay the rent, an' all the money she earns she boozes.'