She stood up, feeling stiff and bruised, her back aching, her head swimming, all her desiring ebbing as the moon waned. Already the glimmer of dawn paled the moonshine. She could hear the crowing of the c.o.c.ks, the occasional rumble of a cart, the indescribable murmur that betokens an awakening city. The night had gone at last and the daylight had come and she had worn herself out and conquered. She thought this without joy; it was her fate not her heart. Nature itself had come to her rescue, the very Nature she had resisted and denied.

She struck a light and looked into the gla.s.s, curious to know if she were the same still. Dark circles surrounded her eyes, her nose was pinched, her cheeks wan, on her forehead between the brows were distinct wrinkles, from the corners of the mouth were chiselled deeply the lines of pain.

She was years older. Could it be possible that only five hours ago she had flung herself into a lover's arm by the moonlit water, a pa.s.sionate girl, in womanhood's first bloom? She had cast those days behind her for ever, she thought; she would serve the Cause alone, henceforth, while she lived. Rest, eternal rest, must come at last; she could only hope that it would come soon. At least, if she lived without joy, she would die without self-reproach.

Exhausted, she sank to sleep almost as her head touched the pillow. And in her sleep she lived again that night at the Strattons with Ned and heard Geisner profess G.o.d and condemn her hatred of maternity. "You close the gates of Life," he said. Taking her hand he led her to where a great gate stood, of iron, bra.s.s bound, and there behind it a great flood of little children pressed and struggled, dashing and crashing till the great gates shook and tottered.

"They will break the gates open," she cried to him in anguish.

"Did you deem to alter the unalterable?" he asked. And his voice was Ned's voice and turning round she saw it was Ned who held her hand. They stood by the harbour side again and she loved him. Again her whole being melted into his as he kissed her. Again they were alone in the Universe, conscious only of an ineffable joy.

"Time to get up, Nellie!" called Mrs. Phillips, who was knocking at the door. Nellie's working day began again.

CHAPTER VI.

UNEMPLOYED.

After ten minutes' walking Ned reached a broad thoroughfare. Hesitating for a moment, to get his bearings, he saw across the way one of the cheap restaurants of which "all meals sixpence" is the symbol and which one sees open until all sorts of hours. The window was still lighted, so Ned, parched with thirst, entered to get a cup of coffee. It was a clean-looking place, enough. He saw on the wall the legend "Clean beds"

as he gulped down his coffee thirstily from the saucer.

"Can you put me up to-night?" he asked, overpowered with a drowsiness that dulled even his thoughts about Nellie and unwilling to walk on to his hotel.

"Yes, sir," answered the waiter, a young man who was making preparations to close for the night. "In half a minute."

Soon a cabman had finished his late midnight meal and departed. But another pa.s.ser-by dropped in, who was left over a plate of stew while the waiter led Ned to a narrow stair at the end of the room, pa.s.sing round a screen behind which a stout, gray-haired man slumbered in an arm chair with all the appearance of being the proprietor. The waiter showed Ned the way with a lighted match, renewed when burnt out. Ned noticed that the papered walls and part.i.tions of the stairway and upper floor were dirty, torn and giving way in patches. From the first landing a dark narrow pa.s.sage led towards the front street while three or four ricketty, cracked doors were crowded at the stairhead. Snoring sounds came from all quarters. The waiter turned up a still narrower twisting stairway. As they neared the top Ned could see a dim light coming through an open doorway.

The room to which he was thus introduced was some fifteen feet long and as many broad, on the floor. Two gabled windows, back and front, made with the centre line of the low-sloping ceiling a Greek cross effect. A single candle, burning on a backless chair by one of the windows, threw its flickering light on the choked room-full of old-fashioned iron bedsteads, bedded in make-shift manner, six in all, four packed against the wall opposite the door at which the stairs ended and one on each side of the window whereby was the light. On one of these latter beds a bearded man lay stretched, only partly undressed; on its edge sat a youth in his shirt. Although it was so late they were talking.

"Not gone to bed yet?" asked the waiter.

"Hullo, Jack!" replied the youth. "Aren't you coming to bed yet?"

"A gentleman of Jack's profession," said the bearded man, whose liquorous voice proclaimed how he had put in his evening, "doesn't require to go to bed at all. 'Gad, that's very good. You understand me?" He referred his wit to the youth. He spoke with the drawling hesitation of the English "swell."

"I understand you," replied the youth, in a respectful voice that had acquired its tone in the English shires.

"I don't get much chance whether I require it or not," remarked Jack, with an American accentuation, proceeding to make up the other bed by the light. There was nothing on the grimy mattress but a grimy blanket, so he brought a couple of fairly clean sheets from a bed in the opposite corner and spread them dexterously.

"Have we the pleasure of more company, Jack?" enquired the broken-down swell. "You understand me?"

"I understand you," said the English lad.

"This gentleman's going to stay," replied Jack, putting the sheet over the caseless pillow.

"Glad to make your acquaintance, sir," said the swell to Ned, upon this introduction. "We can't offer you a chair but you're welcome to a seat on the bed. If you can't offer a man wine give him whisky, and if you haven't got whisky offer him the best you've got." This last to the youth. "You understand me?"

"I understand you," said the youth. "I understand you perfectly."

"Thanks," replied Ned. "But it won't hurt to stand for a minute. There ain't much room to stand though, is there?"

His head nearly touched the ceiling in the highest part; on either side it sloped sharply, the slope only broken by the window gables, the stair cas.e.m.e.nt being carried into the very centre of the room to get height for the door. The plaster on the ceiling had come off in patches, as if cannon-balled by unwary heads, showing the lath, and was also splashed by the smoke-wreaths of carelessly held candles; the papering was half torn from the shaky plastering of the wall; the flooring was time-eaten. A general impression of uncleanness was everywhere. On a ricketty little table behind the candle was a tin basin and a cracked earthenware pitcher. Excepting a limited supply of bedroom ware, which was very strongly in evidence, there was no other furniture. Looking round, Ned saw that on the bed opposite the door, hidden in the shadows, a man lay groaning and moaning. Through the windows could be seen the glorious moonlight.

"No. A man wants to be careful here," said the waiter, throwing the blanket over the sheets and straightening it in a whisk. "There," he went on, "will that suit you?"

"Anything'll suit me," said Ned, pulling off his coat and hanging it over the head of the postless bed. "I'm much obliged."

"That's all right," replied Jack, cheerfully. "I'll be up to bed soon,"

he informed the others and ran down stairs again.

"Will you have a cigarette?" asked the English lad, holding out a box.

"Thanks, but I don't smoke," answered Ned, who had pulled off his boots and was wrestling with his shirt. Finally it came over his head. He lay down in his underclothing, having first gingerly turned back the blanket to the foot.

"I don't desire to be personal," said the broken-down swell. "You'll excuse me, but I must say you're a finely built man. You understand me?

No offence!"

"He is big," chipped in the youth.

"You don't offend a man much by telling him he's well built," retorted Ned, with an attempt at mirth.

"Certainly. You understand me. It's not the size, my boy"--to the youth. "Size is nothing. It's the proportion, the capacity for putting out strength. I've been an athlete myself and I'm no chicken yet. But our friend here ought to be a Hercules. Will you take a drink? You'll excuse the gla.s.s." He offered Ned a flask half full of whisky.

"Thanks just the same but I never drink," answered Ned, stretching himself carelessly. The lad refused also.

"You're wise, both of you," commented the other, swallowing down a couple of mouthfuls of the undiluted liquor. "If I'd never touched it I should have been a wealthy man to-day. But I shall be a wealthy man yet. You understand me?"

"Yes," answered Ned, mechanically. He was looking at the frank, open, intelligent face and well-made limbs of the half-naked lad opposite and wondering what he was doing here with this grizzled drunkard. The said grizzled drunkard being the broken-down swell, whose highly-coloured face, swollen nose and s...o...b..ry eyes told a tale that his slop-made clothes would have concealed. "How old are you?" he asked the lad, the drunkard having fallen asleep in the middle of a discourse concerning a great invention which would bring him millions.

"I'm nineteen."

"You look older," remarked Ned.

"Most people think I'm older," replied the lad proudly.

"You're not a native."

"No. I'm from the west of England."

"Which county?"

"Devon."

"My father's Devon," said Ned, at which the poor lad looked up eagerly, as though in Ned he recognised an old friend.