Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/304

 your own upsets to think of. You might have come to speak to me before this—but never mind. It’s nothing to you.”

It needed much coaxing to persuade her to detail Sam’s enormities, but she found much relief when she had done so, and wept more copiously than ever.

“It’s nearly twelve o’clock, and there’s no sign of him. Perhaps he won’t come at all. He’s in bad company, and if he stays away all night I’ll never speak to him again as long as I live. Oh, he’s a beast of a husband, is Sam!”

Sam came not. All through that night did Jane keep her friend company, for Sam came not. In the morning a letter, addressed in his well-known commercial hand. Bessie read it and screamed. Sam wrote to her that he had accepted a position as country traveller, and perhaps he might be able to look in at his home on that day month.

Jane could not go to work. The case had become very serious indeed; Bessie was in hysterics; the four children made the roof ring with their lamentations. At this juncture Jane put forth all her beneficent energy.