“What time is it?” asked Samuel, bold.
“A quarter-past one, sir.”
The policeman, leaving Samuel at the little open door, went forward across the lamplit Square, and Samuel entered his cousin’s shop.
Daniel Povey was standing behind the door, and as Samuel came in he shut the door with a startling sudden movement. Save for the twinkle of gas, the shop was in darkness. It had the empty appearance which a well-managed confectioner’s and baker’s always has at night. The large brass scales near the flour-bins glinted; and the glass cake-stands, with scarce a tart among them, also caught the faint flare of the gas.
“What’s the matter, Daniel? Anything wrong?” Samuel asked, feeling boyish as he usually did in the presence of Daniel.
The well-favoured white-haired man seized him with one hand by the shoulder in a grip that convicted Samuel of frailty.
“Look here, Sam’l,” said he in his low, pleasant voice, somewhat altered by excitement. “You know as my wife drinks?”
He stared defiantly at Samuel.
“N—no,” said Samuel. “That is—no one’s ever SAID——”
This was true. He did not know that Mrs. Daniel Povey, at the age of fifty, had definitely taken to drink. There had been rumours that she enjoyed a glass with too much gusto; but ‘drinks’ meant more than that.