Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. I, 1889.djvu/286

 hand the fragment of a hat, and her dolman had disappeared. Her husband was not in much better plight; his waistcoat and shirt were rent open, his coat was filth-smeared, and it seemed likely that he had lost the sight of one eye. Sitting there in drunken lassitude, he breathed nothing but threats of future vengeance.

An hour later noises of a familiar kind sounded beneath the window. A woman’s voice was raised in the fury of mad drunkenness, and a man answered her with threats and blows.

“That’s mother,” sobbed Pennyloaf. “I knew she wouldn’t get over to-day. She never did get over a Bank-holiday.”

Mrs. Candy had taken the pledge when her husband consented to return and live with her. Unfortunately she did not at the same time transfer herself to a country where there are no beer-shops and no Bank-holidays. Short of such decisive change, what hope for her?

Bob was already asleep, breathing