‘Mrs Malpas, Wolfpits.’ ‘Of course,’ said the young man, excusing himself. ‘Pardon. Shall we send them?’ ‘To-morrow’s Sunday, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I think I’d better take them with me.’ ‘Thank you, madam. Very kind of you,’ said the assistant, making a large blue-paper parcel, which he handed her over the counter with an obsequious bow. She picked up her parcel and fled, thankful that the grocer was too busy to notice her. She felt that the eyes of all the women were on her and that they knew her for a thief. Also she knew that she could never attempt this adventure again. So the end came, or what they thought must be the end. They sat together one night in the kitchen at Wolfpits, and both of them knew that they were beaten. A fire burned brightly in the hearth—in this thickly wooded valley they need never lack warmth—the room seemed cosy and almost gay in the firelight, showing no signs that they had fallen from prosperity, for though Mary had paid three more visits to the pawnbroker’s and now felt hardened to the adventure, she had always managed to conceal the deficiencies in the furniture by some new arrangement. On her last journey to Shrewsbury, hurrying to the station under the walls of the jail, the idea had struck her that she might be forced in the end to pawn her wedding ring, and she had laughed bitterly to herself. Much good had it done her! The idea had only struck her as a whimsical prospect. She had too much common sense to allow herself to be driven to this conventional expedient. She knew that they could not go on indefinitely stripping the house of its furniture. It would be far better to face the facts. If Abner could not find work, and there seemed no probability of his doing so, the best that they could do was to part. He must leave her, and she, pocketing her pride, must apply to the relieving officer, whom she had once shown to the door, for money from the parish. She knew that it must come to this, and yet she could not bring herself to tell Abner. She had settled in her mind that the proposal must come from him, and for the present he seemed numbed, worn, incapable of thinking. He sat opposite her in silence with an empty pipe between his teeth staring at the fire. After a little while she found herself silently weeping, and turned her face away from him, blowing her nose to hide her tears. Some one knocked at the door, and she cried: ‘Come in!’