“You do that, doctor?”
“I do.”
“Well, there ain’t much mistake in makin’ the missus yer banker when she’s clean and tidy, and looks to a man’s buttons.”
Murchison turned out again into the drizzling rain, and swung along a dozen dreary streets that resembled each other much as one curbstone resembles another. A church clock was striking eleven as he reached a row of little, red brick villas on the outskirts of the town, with a dirty piece of waste-land in front and the black canal behind. He stopped before a gate that bore, as though in irony, the name “Clovelly.” There was no blue, boundless Atlantic within glimpse of Wilton town, no flashing up of golden coast-lines in the sunlight, no towering cliffs piling green foam towards a sapphire sky.
The front door opened at the click of the garden gate, if ten square feet of garden and a gravel-path could be flattered with the name of a garden. A woman’s figure stood outlined by the lamp burning in the hall. She was dressed in a cheap cotton blouse, and skirt of dark-blue serge, but the clothes looked well on her, better than silks on the body of another.
Her husband’s face drew out of the darkness into the light. Catherine’s eyes had rested half-questioningly on it for a moment, the eyes of a woman whose love is ever on the watch.
“I am late, dear,” and he went in with a feeling of tired relief.
They kissed.
“Come, your supper is ready. Dear me, what a long day you have had!” and she glanced at the bag, understanding at once what had kept him to such an hour.
“How are the youngsters?”