Lizzie had been well out of it. Daniel would never have been able to hold up his head for the disgrace; whereat Daniel had smiled somewhat sardonically. His skin was a little too tough, he said, for vicarious reprobation.
But Lizzie had other and more private reasons for wishing to migrate. In the first flush of her dignity she had shrunk from the streets with which she had been too grossly familiar during her early girlhood. She had larked with the butcher’s boy, played kiss in the ring with the greengrocer’s assistant, and kept very serious company with Joe Forster the tobacconist. Such daily reminiscences are apt to prove embarrassing. The translated Lizzie had felt out of her element in Sunington. So, to please her, Daniel had come into London and taken a house in Notting Hill, where they had remained during the seven years of their married life.
It was late when Goddard stood before the familiar door, on his return from the Stepney meeting. An expression of impatience escaped his lips as he noticed a light in the basement; otherwise, with the exception of the faintly illuminated fanlight, the house was in darkness. He let himself in with his latch-key, and walking the length of the dim passage, descended the kitchen stairs, groping his way. He opened the kitchen door softly, and found the housemaid asleep, with her head on the deal table. Awakened by his presence, the girl started in some confusion.
“Why haven’t you gone to bed, Jane?”
His tone was less one of reprimand than that of a man repeating a disagreeable formula.
“Mistress was very poorly to-night, sir, and I thought I had better sit up till you came.”
He nodded, looked at her sombrely from beneath his eyebrows.
“Did you see her to bed comfortably?”
“Oh yes, sir.”