Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/257

Rh like? You’ve had it on the side of your ’ed often enough. You just look out for yourself!”

“And you just turn out of my house,” cried Bessie, scarlet with wrath. “This minute! Sarah! Sarah! Run out by the arey-steps and fetch a p'liceman, this minute! The idea!”

Clem had said her say, however, and with a few more volleys of atrocious language was content to retire. Having slammed the door upon her, Bessie cried in a trembling voice:

“Oh, if only Sam had been here! My, how I should have liked Sam to have been here! Wouldn’t he have given her something for herself! Why, such a creature oughtn’t be left loose. Oh, if Sam had been here!”

Jane had sat down on the stairs; her face was hidden in her hands. That brutal voice had carried her back to her wretched childhood; everything about her in the present was unreal in comparison with the terrors, the hardships, the humiliations revived by memory. As she sat at this moment, so had she sat many a time on the cellar-steps at Mrs. Peckover’s. So powerfully was her imagination affected that she had a feeling as