"That didn't stop me; he was my husband, and if strange things was being done, who had a better right than me to know all about 'em? But it was all no use; I couldn't git nothing out of him.
"'If you don't shut up,' he said, quite savage like, 'I'll set Devlin on to you, and you'll have cause to remember it to the last day of your life!'
"Jest as if I haven't got cause to remember it! If I lived a thousand years I couldn't forgit what's happened.
"If I could have got rid of my lodger I shouldn't have thought twice about it; out he'd have gone; but he paid me reg'lar, did Devlin, and always in advance, so that I had no egscuse for giving him notice. And even if I had, I ain't at all sure that I should have had the courage to do it.
"It begun to trouble me more than I can say, that I never heard him come in or go out, and that I never caught the sound of his footsteps on the stairs or in the passage, and that, when he might have been in the Canary Islands for all I knew, I'd turn my head and see him standing at the back of me, without my having the least idea how he got into the room.
"'Here I am, you see, Mrs. Lemon,' he'd say; 'back agin, like a bad penny. You're glad to see me, I'm sure. Say you're glad.'
"And I had to, whether I liked it or not. Then he'd grin and wag his head at me, and sometimes say if he knew where there was another woman like me he'd stick up to her. 'Lord have mercy,' I used to think, 'on the woman who'd give you a second look unless she was obliged to!'
"I grew to be that shaky and trembly that my life was a perfect misery; and so was Lemon's. But I used to speak about it, which was a little relief, while poor Lemon would never so much as open his lips. I pitied him a deal more than I did myself. I did say to him once:
"'Lemon, let's call a broker in when Devlin's not here, and sell the furniture, and run away.'
"'You talk like a fool,' said Lemon. 'If we was to hide ourselves in the bowels of the earth he'd ferret us out.'