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70 in London before whom I dared present myself, no money to join a club where I might have mixed with my fellows, no one to talk to or exchange a single idea with—and I wasn't always the gloomy sort of person I have become; in my younger days I loved companionship. And the women—my landlady's daughter, with dyed hair, a loud voice, slatternly in the morning, a flagrant imitation of her less honest sisters at night! Who else? Where was I to meet women when I didn't even know men? I spent my poor holidays at Detton Magna. Our very loneliness brought Beatrice and me closer together. We used to walk in those ugly fields around Detton Magna and exchanged the story of our woes. She was a teacher at the national school. The children weren't pleasant, their parents were worse. The drudgery was horrible, and there wasn't any escape for her. Sometimes she would sob as we sat side by side. She, too, wanted something out of life, as I did, and there seemed nothing but that black wall always before us. I think that we clung together because we shared a common misery. We talked endlessly of a way out. For me what was there? There was no one to rob—I wasn't clever enough. There was no way I could earn money, honestly or dishonestly. And for her, buried in that Derbyshire village amongst the collieries, where there was scarcely a person who hadn't the taint of the place upon them—what chance was there for her? There was nothing she could do, either. I knew in my heart that we were both ready for evil things, if by evil things we could make our escape. And we couldn't. So we tried to lose ourselves in the only