It was a dark, dull time, too sordid for the actors to accrue any excitement at its lurid aspects. Night after night they sat till they were too befuddled to talk, each in turn providing the necessary amount of gin for the night's debauch. Belper punctuated the weary days by long sleeps, and Gobion by caressing Lucy Ebbage. His health began to go slowly, and the torture of insomnia was added to his life. One evening Mrs. Ebbage came into his room incoherently reminiscent, and sitting on the bed, rambled of the past, giving Gobion a strange glimpse of the habits of her class. She told of her youth in a Westminster slum, of her mother who had been kicked to death in a low public-house on the evening of the Derby. "'Er face was like a bit of liver after they'd done with 'er, and when the p'lice came in she was as dead as meat. I often think ovver." She went on to talk of her daughter by her first marriage, who had died at seventeen, her coarse voice trembling as she told how clever she had been at crochet work, and what a small foot she had. She showed Gobion a tiny white shoe the girl had worn. It was piteous to hear her--this scraggy, hard woman--with tears in her eyes, talking of her dead darling. Then she said, "My 'ands are all mucky, and I've gone and soiled the shoe. Pore 'Arriet, it don't matter to 'er now." She wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron, and with a change of manner--a somewhat futile arrogation of gaiety--"We're goin' to 'ave a bit of supper. Ebbage said as 'e could swallow a Welsh rarebit and a drop of something 'ot; come down and 'ave a bit." "Yes," said Gobion slowly, "let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow----" Mr. Belper came in and made coarse jokes, to Mr. Ebbage's huge delight. Gobion in his loneliness sat and became one of them, eating with his knife to avoid the appearance of eccentricity. About eleven o'clock he went out with a jug to get some beer. The streets were heavy with fog, but he had not far to go, as the public-house he frequented was just round the corner. He chatted with the barmaid while she was drawing the beer, noticing with a smile the notice painted on the wall: "WHERE ELSE CAN YOU GET Such fine MELLOW 4d. RUM! Such pure OLD 6d. WHISKEY! Such luscious 4-1/2d. GIN! Such MATCHLESS 6d. BRANDY!" As he was going back a man in evening dress knocked against him. "I beg pardon," he said. "I don't see--good God! Gobion!" It was Scott. Gobion took him into his room, and lit the little alabaster lamp, rich in gaudy flower work. The door opened, and the Reverend Peter Belper came in. The light shone on him, and he looked more Silenus-like than ever. "Beg pardon," he said, "thought you were alone." Gobion seized the momentary diversion of his coming to put on a tie and push his dirty cuffs under the sleeves of his coat. "Oh! my dear old man," said Scott, looking round the room, "have you come to this? Why didn't you tell me?"