Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/18

 them doin’,” said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands.

“I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,” returned Mr. Snowdon.

As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. “What’s the meaning of all this?” he asked himself, and not for the first time. “What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I’d run down to my last penny, and I didn’t know where to find a night’s lodging. I’d got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman,