To please his wife, Daniel had not settled down in Sunington. He had bidden farewell reluctantly, for it meant the sundering of many ties, and the surrendering of many interests. But Lizzie had been insistent. Visions of domestic harmony, disturbed by incursions of Captain Jenkyns in an advanced state of profanity, had prompted earnest beseeching. Perhaps she was wise; for soon after her marriage the old reprobate, to the exceeding great scandal of the neighbourhood, took to himself a mistress-housekeeper in the shape of a flaunting, red-faced female of pugnacious instincts, who had retained possession of the house after his death. Their goings on, Emily and Sophie declared, had been something awful. Lizzie had been well out of it. Daniel would never have been able to hold up his head for the disgrace; whereat Daniel had smiled somewhat sardonically. His skin was a little too tough, he said, for vicarious reprobation. But Lizzie had other and more private reasons for wishing to migrate. In the first flush of her dignity she had shrunk from the streets with which she had been too grossly familiar during her early girlhood. She had larked with the butcher’s boy, played kiss in the ring with the greengrocer’s assistant, and kept very serious company with Joe Forster the tobacconist. Such daily reminiscences are apt to prove embarrassing. The translated Lizzie had felt out of her element in Sunington. So, to please her, Daniel had come into London and taken a house in Notting Hill, where they had remained during the seven years of their married life. ***** It was late when Goddard stood before the familiar door, on his return from the Stepney meeting. An expression of impatience escaped his lips as he noticed a light in the basement; otherwise, with the exception of the faintly illuminated fanlight, the house was in darkness. He let himself in with his latch-key, and walking the length of the dim passage, descended the kitchen stairs, groping his way. He opened the kitchen door softly, and found the housemaid asleep, with her head on the deal table. Awakened by his presence, the girl started in some confusion. “Why haven’t you gone to bed, Jane?” His tone was less one of reprimand than that of a man repeating a disagreeable formula. “Mistress was very poorly to-night, sir, and I thought I had better sit up till you came.” He nodded, looked at her sombrely from beneath his eyebrows. “Did you see her to bed comfortably?” “Oh yes, sir.” “Hasn’t Miss Jenkyns been here?” “No, sir. Miss Sophie came for an hour this afternoon.” “Very well,” said Goddard, turning on his heel. “Go to bed now, there’s a good girl. You must be tired.”