Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/206

 there are few things I wouldn’t do. Of course it’s something disgraceful, but you needn’t be afraid on that account; I haven’t lost all my pride yet, but I know what I’m fighting for, and I won’t be beaten. Cost what it may, I’ll make people hear of me and talk of me, and I’ll pay myself back for all I’ve gone tlirough. So write in plain words, or come and see me.

She wrote at a round table, shaky on its central support, in the parlour of an indifferent lodging-house; the October afternoon drew towards dusk; the sky hung low and murky, or, rather, was itself invisible, veiled by the fume of factory chimneys; a wailing wind rattled the sash and the door. A newly lighted fire refused to flame cheerfully, half-smothered in its own smoke, which every now and then was blown downwards and out into the room. The letter finished,—scribbled angrily with a bad pen and in pale ink,—she put it into its envelope,—“C. H. Scawthorne, Esq.”