‘What’s up, Clem?’ he inquired, on one of these occasions.  ’Are you wondering whether I shall cut and leave you when we’ve had time to get tired of each other?’

Her face was transformed; she looked at him for an instant with fierce suspicion, then laughed disagreeably.

‘We’ll see about that,’ was her answer, with a movement of the head and shoulders strongly reminding one of a lithe beast about to spring.

The necessary delay passed without accident.  As the morning of the marriage approached there was, however, a perceptible increase of nervous restlessness in Clem.  She had given up her work at Whitehead’s, and contrived to keep her future husband within sight nearly all day long.  Joseph James found nothing particularly irksome in this, for beer and tobacco were supplied him ad libitum, and a succession of appetising meals made the underground kitchen a place of the pleasantest associations.  A loan from Mrs. Peckover had enabled him to renew his wardrobe.  When the last night arrived, Clem and her mother sat conversing to a late hour, their voices again cautiously subdued.  A point had been for some days at issue between them, and decision was now imperative.

‘It’s you as started the job,’ Clem observed with emphasis, ‘an’ it’s you as’ll have to finish it.’

‘And who gets most out of it, I’d like to know?’ replied her mother.  ’Don’t be such a fool!  Can’t you see as it’ll come easier from you?  A nice thing for his mother-in-law to tell him!  If you don’t like to do it the first day, then leave it to the second, or third.  But if you take my advice, you’ll get it over the next morning.’

‘You’ll have to do it yourself,’ Clem repeated stubbornly, propping her chin upon her fists.

’Well, I never thought as you was such a frightened babby!  Frightened of a feller like him!  I’d be ashamed o’ myself!’

‘Who’s frightened?  Hold your row!’

‘Why, you are; what else?’

‘I ain’t!’

‘You are!’

’I ain’t!  You’d better not make me mad, or I’ll tell him before, just to spite you.’

’Spite me, you cat!  What difference ’ll it make to me?  I’ll tell you what:  I’ve a jolly good mind to tell him myself beforehand, and then we’ll see who’s spited.’

In the end Clem yielded, shrugging her shoulders defiantly.

‘I’ll have a kitchen-knife near by when I tell him,’ she remarked with decision.  ‘If he lays a hand on me I’ll cut his face open, an’ chance it!’

Mrs. Peckover smiled with tender motherly deprecation of such extreme measures.  But Clem repeated her threat, and there was something in her eyes which guaranteed the possibility of its fulfilment.