They descended, their footsteps ringing on the stone and echoing up to the roof.  The old woman still stood at the foot of the stairs, her head bent, the hand against her side.

‘Will you go out here,’ she asked, ’or do you want to see anythink else?’

‘I should like to see the back part again,’ Egremont replied.

She led them across the schoolroom, through the dark passage, and into a small room which had the distant semblance of a parlour.  Here she lit a lamp; then, without speaking, guided them over the house, of which she appeared to be the only inhabitant.  There were seven rooms; only three of them contained any furniture.  Then they all returned to the comfortless parlour.

‘Your chest is bad,’ Egremont remarked, looking curiously at the woman.

‘Yes, I dessay it is,’ was the ungracious reply.

’Well, I don’t think we need trouble you any more at present, but I shall probably have to come again in a day or two.’

‘I dessay you’ll find me here.’

’And feeling better, I hope.  The weather gives you much trouble, no doubt.’

He held half a crown to her.  She regarded it, clasped it in the hand which was against her bosom, and at length dropped a curtsy, though without speaking.

‘What a poor crabbed old creature!’ Egremont exclaimed, as they walked away.  ’I should feel relieved if I knew that she went off at once to the warmth of the public-house opposite.’

‘Yes, she hasn’t a very cheerful home.’

’Oh, but it can be made a very different house.  It has fallen into such neglect.  Wait till spring sunshine and the paperhangers invade the place.’

They issued into a main street, and after a little further talk, shook hands and parted.

That night, and through the Sunday that followed, Gilbert continued to suffer even more than his wont from mental dreariness; Mrs. Grail was unable to draw him into conversation.

About four o’clock she said: 

‘May I ask Lydia and Thyrza to come and have tea with us, Gilbert?’

He looked up absently.

‘But they were here last Sunday.’

’Yes, my dear, but I think they like to come, and I’m sure I like to have them.’

’Let us leave it till next Sunday, mother.  You don’t mind?  I feel I must be alone to-night.’

It was a most unusual thing for Gilbert to offer opposition when his mother had expressed a desire for anything.  Mrs. Grail at once said: 

’I dare say you’re right, my dear.  Next Sunday ‘ll be better.’

The next morning he went to his work through a fog so dense that it was with difficulty he followed the familiar way.  Lamps were mere lurid blotches in the foul air, perceptible only when close at hand; the footfall of invisible men and women hurrying to factories made a muffled, ghastly sound; harsh bells summoned through the darkness, the voice of pitiless taskmasters to whom all was indifferent save the hour of toil.  Gilbert was racked with headache.  Bodily suffering made him as void of intellectual desire as the meanest labourer then going forth to earn bread; he longed for nothing more than to lie down and lose consciousness of the burden of life.