James T. Boulton

of Wales," very warm and bright, and the loud voices of men
could be heard distinctly. What a fool she had been to imagine
that anything had happened to him! Here, in the common-
place movement of the sordid village, her sense of tragedy, with
its dignity, vanished. He was merely drinking over there at the
"Prince of Wales." She faltered. She had never yet been to
fetch him, and she never would. Yet, while she was out, she
must get some satisfaction. So she continued her walk, with
the black wooden fence and the railway on her right, and, across
the road, the long straggling line of houses standing blank on
the highway. She went across the road, and entered a passage
between the houses.

This entry sloped down sharply, as the houses were built
on the drop to the brook, and had downstair kitchens. The
houses were in pairs, as is usual, the back doors facing each
other, and between them a small breadth of bricked yard. She
did not know for certain which was the house of Jack Rigley,
one of her husband's fellow butties* . She asked at the wrong
house.

"No, Rigleys is next door -- there look!" And Elizabeth
Bates turned round, moved past the big, lighted kitchen windows
of the two houses, and knocked at the other door.

"Mr. Rigley? -- Yes! Did you want him? No, he's not
in at this minute."

The raw-boned woman leaned forward from her dark scullery
and peered at the other, upon whom fell a dim light through
the blind of the kitchen window.

"Is it Mrs. Bates?" she asked in a tone tinged with respect.

"Yes. I wondered if your Master was at home. Mine
hasn't come yet."

28