Jeckie shook her head.
"There's naught could ever make me do that," she said. "It was over and done with. Once I thought of emigrating and starting afresh, but there was him"—she nodded towards the stairs. "I had to think of him. So I came here, and furnished this bit of a house, and started taking in lodgers—chance folk, like yourself. It's been—well, just a comfortable living. T'old fellow upstairs is satisfied, especially since he lost all his memory. And that's the main thing, anyhow, now. There's naught else."
Albert said nothing, and there was a long pause before Jeckie spoke again. Then she asked a question.
"What might you be doing?"
"Bit o' travelling," replied Albert. "The old line—a patent food. No great thing; but, as you say, it's, well, just a nice living. For a single man, keeps one going; and I can manage a cigar now and then, and a drop o' that," he added, with a knowing sidelong glance at the bottle. "I don't complain."
Jeckie shrugged her shoulders.
"What's the use?" she said.
Albert suddenly rose, went out into the passage, and came back with a packet in his hand, which he presented to her.
"This is the stuff," he said. "Invaluable for children, invalids, and old people. You might try it on your father; it's grand stuff for old 'uns when they've lost their teeth. Lately I've done very nicely with it. What I want is to get a bigger connection with leading firms in some of these towns. I'm going to try a whole day here to-morrow. I've only one of these Scarhaven firms on my list at present. Now, you'll have an idea about where I should go, eh? Happen you can suggest...."
They continued talking for an hour or two, facing each other across the hearth, two broken things, with a past behind them, and a bottle between them, each secretly conscious of mutual knowledge, and neither daring to speak of it. They talked of anything but the past, any trifle of the moment; yet the consciousness of the past was there, spectre-like, and each felt it. And, at last, as the clock struck eleven, Jeckie rose and lighted a candle.