Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/194

184 found a horrible fascination, a devilish allurement to that which his soul shrank from. She lowered her voice.

“There’s lots of ways. It ‘ud be easy to make it seem as somebody did it just to rob him. He’s always out late at night.”

His face was much the colour of the muddy water yellowed by that shaft of sunlight. His lips quivered. “I dursn’t, Clem. I tell you plain, I dursn’t.”

“Coward!” she snarled at him, savagely.

“Coward! All right, Mr. Bob. You go your way, and I’ll go mine.”

“Listen here, Clem,” he gasped out, laying his hand on her arm. “I’ll think about it. I won’t say no. Give me a day to think about it.”

“Oh, we know what your thinkin’ means.”

They talked for some time longer, and before they parted Bob had given a promise to do more than think. The long, slouching strides with which he went up from the embankment to the Strand gave him the appearance of a man partly overcome with drink. For hours he walked about the City, in complete oblivion of