René took it that same evening to Old Lunt's room. It was behind a stable and harness room used by a grocer as a store. Its one window looked out on a blank wall of yellow brick. For the rest the room was exactly as the old man had described it; not a stick of furniture in it; sacks thrown in a corner, and on these Old Lunt was lying with his legs crossed, his hand under his head, smiling up into the dim light. The setting sun struck the yellow wall outside the window, and the upper part of the room was filled with an apricot-colored glow. Dust danced in the light. The room was filled with an acrid sweetish smell. Manuscript in hand, René stepped forward. "Good evening, sir," he said, "I thought you----" He stopped, for he knew that the old man was dead. He had known it before he began to speak, but the sound of his voice brought home to him the mockery of words. Raising the cold right hand, he laid _The Rise and Fall of British Industry_ beneath it. The light died down. The glow sank into the gloom. He crept away, told the woman next door that Lunt was dead, and she said she would go at once to the crowner's office. VIII RITA AND JOE And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied All that was left of a woman once, Holding at least its tongue for the nonce. ANN had always known Old Lunt. As far back as she could remember the mews had been her playground, and the old man coming and going had been a part of the scene. She seemed to connect the silence that visited her mate after his death with him, for she filled it with reminiscence and stories about him. He used to sing queer old songs, and sometimes he could be persuaded to tell about the country where he came from and flowers and birds; yarns about his father's farm and the happiness he had had on it until it came into his brother's hands, and his brother had gone into the manufacturing. Then there was no home for him in the old stone house. For all her talk Ann could not break in upon René's silence, and his eyes would implore her to cease, yet she could not cease. She went on and on talking, for she dreaded his silence as she dreaded his solemnity. They made life heavy and evil for her. If a man was unhappy, there were plenty of distractions and consolations. Everybody was unhappy at times, but no one in his senses clung to his unhappiness the way Renny did. It was an exasperation to her to have him like this--"mooning and dithering to himself"--because he had been so much more complacent and docile than she had expected. She had looked for trouble, but he had slipped into her ways, and shared her pleasures with an astonishing ease and grace, so much so that she had had the mortification of hearing two women in the mews arguing about him: "Garn! 'E ain't no scholard." "'Struth. 'E's a college gent." "'Im! They might come to see a working girl, but they wouldn't take up with 'er."