The last evening, which she had dreaded so, went more easily than she had expected.  The Consul and his wife were invited to the Willocks’ country-house in the afternoon with the children, so the farewell could only be a short one, before they got into the carriage.

She was left standing with the feeling of Lizzie’s soft fur, which she had stroked, in her fingers.

CHAPTER IV

A STOLEN INTERVIEW

Holman made his usual turn into Selvig’s public-house every evening to brace himself for his return home.  When the ale-bottle had been emptied, and a proper number of drams consumed, his at first hurried, restless look was stiffened into a dull, staring, fixed mask.  It was the crust about his heart, far within the unconscious, degraded man, who enjoyed his daily hour of oblivion to that life-struggle which he had taken upon himself when he chose to unite his lot inseparably with that of his duty-breathing wife, that life-struggle in which he continually declared “pass,” and turned aside.  When he sat there silently staring over his glass, it was felt that he was brooding over something, possibly only the number of drams he had drunk, possibly his bill, possibly, too, a remote world of thought, where, like a philosopher, he gazed silently down into unfathomable depths.  Or possibly he was musing in silent resignation upon the problem of matrimony, and the strange law of consequence which had set him down here in the public-house.

But regularity in all things, said Holman, and when the clock struck eight, with his tools in his hand and his head bent, he turned his faltering steps homewards.

On Saturday evenings, when work was over at the workshop, a tall, active young girl, with large wrists, thin arms and a stooping figure, would often come down to fetch him.  She had a basket, and a piece of paper on which was written what she was to buy with the week’s wages.

The two would then go up the street together, walking slower and slower as they went.  Time after time he would stop, and look thoughtfully about him with one hand in his pocket, and an occasionally ejaculated “H’m, h’m!”—­until they arrived at Mrs. Selvig’s steps and green door, when he would suddenly declare that he had some “things” lying in there:  he would be out again directly.

Silla knew by experience what “directly” meant, and meanwhile went her own way over the yards.

Through the lovely August evening, one troop of workmen after another came over the bridge near the mouth of the river, several of them with the same sort of escort as her father, of wife or child.  It was so usual and its meaning so self-evident, that no one ever gave it a thought.

While the different gates and yards were emitting their streams of workmen, Silla had approached one of the narrow passages with which the loading places are furrowed.  On each side was a wooden hoarding, and there were stacks of timber within.  The irregularly cut up, black muddy roadway led into a forge and implement yard.