She turned from him and pursued her way, but not so quickly as before.  Christopher, limp with misery, tried to move off in another direction, but in spite of himself he was drawn after her.  By Chancery Lane and along the Strand he kept her in sight, often with difficulty, for he durst not draw nearer than some twenty yards.  At Charing Cross she stopped, and by her movements showed that she was looking for an omnibus.  Parish longed to approach, quivered with the ever-recurrent impulse, but his fear prevailed.  In a more lucid state of mind he would probably have remarked that Polly allowed a great many omnibuses to go by, and that she was surely waiting much longer than she need have done.  But at length she jumped in and disappeared, whereupon Mr. Parish spent all the money he had with him on a large brandy and soda, hoping it would make him drunk.

The door of the house in Kennington Road stood open; in the passage Mr. Gammon and Mr. Cheeseman were conversing genially.  They nodded to Polly, but did not speak.  Passing them to the head of the kitchen stairs she called to Mrs. Bubb, and that lady’s voice summoned her to descend.

“Are you alone?” asked Miss Sparkes sharply.

“There’s only Mrs. Cheeseman.”

Polly went down into the kitchen, where Mrs. Cheeseman, a stout woman of slatternly appearance, was sitting with her legs crossed and a plate of shrimps in her lap.

“Have a srimp, Polly?” began Mrs. Bubb, anxious to dismiss the memory of recent discord.

“Thank you, Mrs. Bubb, if I have a fancy for srimps I can afford to buy them for myself.”

“Well, you are nasty!  Ain’t she real obstropolous, Mrs. Cheeseman?  I never knew a nastier-tempered girl in all my life, that I never did.  There’s actially no living with her.”

“Now set down, Polly,” urged the stout woman in an unctuous voice.  “Set down, do, an’ tike things easy.  You’ll worrit your sweet self to death before you’re many years older if you go on like this.”

“I’m much obliged to you, Mrs. Cheeseman,” answered Polly, holding herself very stiff; “but I didn’t come here to set down, nor to talk neither.  But I’m glad you’re here, because you’ll be a witness to what I say.  I’ve come to give Mrs. Bubb a week’s notice.  She’s often enough told me that she wants to keep her house respectable, and I’m sure she’ll be glad to get rid of people as don’t suit her.  It’s the first time I was ever told that I disgraced a ’ouse, and I hope it’ll be the last time too.  When I pay my rent to-morrow morning you’ll please to understand, Mrs. Bubb, that I’ve given a week’s notice.  I may be a disgrace, but I dare say there’s people as won’t be ashamed to let me a room.  And that’s what I came to say, and now I’ve said it, and Mrs. Cheeseman is a witness.”

This was spoken so rapidly that it left Polly breathless and with a very high colour.  The elder women looked at each other, and Mrs. Cheeseman, with a shrimp in her mouth, resumed the attempt at pacification.