XII.
It was her landlady's husband, an unshaven, shifty-looking horror, who dealt her, as it seemed to her then, the last furious blow.
Returning one evening after an aimless search for employment in shops that had earned her rude laughter for her utter inexperience and her presumption in supposing her services could be of any value, she found Mrs. Japes in convulsive tears, speechless.
What was the matter? Hysterical jerks of the head towards the stairs. Up to her room—the cause clear in her rifled box, its contents scattered across the floor, the little case in which with her pictures of Mother and Dad she kept her money gone.
A little raid by Mr. Japes, it appeared, in which Mrs. Japes's property had also suffered.... He had done it before ... a bad lot ... had done time ... the rent overdue and the brokers coming in ... she'd best go ... of course she could tell the police.
Of course she did not tell the police. The whole affair bewildered and frightened her.
To another lodging three streets away.... Initiation by the new landlady into the mysteries of pawnshops; gradual thinning of wardrobe.... Answering of advertisements found in the public library in Great Smith Street.... Long, feet-aching trudges to save omnibus fares.... Always the same outcome. ... Experience?—None. References?—None.... “Thank you; I'm afraid—I'm sure it's all right, but one has to be so careful nowadays. Good morning.” ... Always the same outcome.... The idea of writing to Ireland was hardly conceived. ... That life, those friends, seemed of a period that was dead, done, gone—ages and ages ago....
XIII.
Again it was a man who dealt the deeper blow—a gentlemanly-looking person of whom in Wilton Road one evening she asked the way to an address copied from the Daily Telegraph. Why, by an extraordinary coincidence he was going that way himself, to that very house!—flat, rather. Yes, it was his mother who was advertising for a lady-help. Might he show her the way? ... It would be very kind of him.
Through a maze of streets, he chatting pleasantly enough, though putting now and then curious little questions which she could not understand.... Hadn't he seen her at the Oxford one night? ... Assuredly he had not; what was the Oxford?