Totty walked in the rear of the crowd; she had been frightened by the scene of violence, and there were marks of tears on her cheeks.  She entered the station, eager to get a hearing for a plain story.  Ackroyd turned and saw her.

‘It’s no good saying anything now,’ he said to her.  ’This blackguard has plenty more lies ready.  Go to the house and tell my brother-in-law, will you?  I dare say he’ll come and be bail.’

She went at once, and ran all the way to Paradise Street, so that when in reply to her knock Mrs. Poole appeared at the door, she had to wait yet a moment before her breath would suffice for speaking.  She did not know Mrs. Poole.

‘I’ve got a message from Mr. Ackroyd for Mr. Poole,’ she said.

The other was alarmed.

‘What’s happened now?’ she inquired.  ’I’m Mrs. Poole, Mr. Ackroyd’s sister.’

Totty lowered her voice, and explained rapidly what had come to pass.  Mrs. Poole eyed her throughout with something more than suspicion.

‘And who may you be, if you please?’ she asked at the end.

‘I’m Miss Nancarrow.’

‘I’m not much wiser.  Thank you.  I’ll let Mr. Poole know.’

She closed the door.  Totty, thus unceremoniously shut out, turned away; she felt miserable, and the feeling was so strange to her that before she had gone many steps she again began to cry She had understood well enough the thought expressed in Mrs. Poole’s face; it was gratuitous unkindness, and just now she was not prepared for it.  There was much of the child in her still, for all her years of independence in the highways and by-ways of Lambeth, and, finding it needful to cry, she let her tears have free course, only now and then dashing the back of her hand against the corner of her lips as she walked on.  Why should the woman be so ready to think evil of her?  She had done nothing whatever to deserve it, nothing; she had kept herself a good girl, for all that she lived alone and liked to laugh.  At another time most likely she would have cared something less than a straw for Mrs. Poole’s opinion of her, but just now—­ somehow—­well, she didn’t know quite how it was.  Why would Luke keep on drinking in that way, and oblige her to run out of the music-ball?  It was his fault, the foolish fellow.  But he had been quick enough to defend her; a girl would not find it amiss to have that arm always at her service.  And in the meantime he was in the police cell.

Mrs. Poole, excessively annoyed, went down to the kitchen.  Her husband sat in front of the fire, a long clay pipe at his lips, his feet very wide apart on the fender; up on the high mantelpiece stood a half finished glass of beer.  Though he still held the pipe, he was nodding; as his wife entered, his head fell very low.

‘Jim!’ exclaimed his wife, as if something had been added to her annoyance.

‘Eh?  Well, Jane?—­eh?’

’Then you will set your great feet on the fender!  The minute I turn my back, of course!  If you’re too lazy to take your boots off, you must keep your heels under the chair.  I won’t have my fender scratched, so I tell you!’