Of course Alice yielded; her affection and Richard’s superior force always made it a foregone result that she should do so.

‘And you won’t come and see mother?’ she asked.

‘No.  She’s behaving foolishly.’

’It’s precious dull at home, I can tell you.  I can’t go on much longer without friends of some kind.  I’ve a good mind to marry Mr. Keene, just for a change.’

Richard started up, with his fist on the table.

‘Do you mean to say he’s been talking to you in that way?’ he cried angrily.

Alice had spoken with thoughtless petulance.  She hastened eagerly to correct her error.

’As if I meant it!  Don’t be stupid, Dick.  Of course he hasn’t said a word; I believe he’s engaged to somebody; I thought so from something he said a little while ago.  The idea of me marrying a man like that!’

He examined her closely, and Alice was not afraid of telltale cheeks.

’Well, I can’t think you’d be such a fool.  If I thought there was any danger of that, I’d soon stop it.’

’Would you, indeed!  Why, that would be just the way to make me say I’d have him.  You’d have known that if only you read novels.’

‘Novels!’ he exclaimed, with profound contempt.  ’Don’t go playing with that kind of thing; it’s dangerous.  At least you can wait a week or two longer.  I’ve only let him see so much of you because I felt sure you’d got common sense.’

‘Of course I have.  But what’s to happen in a week or two?’

’I should think you might come to Wanley for a little.  We shall see.  If mother had only ’Arry in the house, she might come back to her senses.’

‘Shall I tell her you’ve been to London?’

‘You can if you like,’ he replied, with a show of indifference.

Jane Vine was buried on Sunday afternoon, her sisters alone accompanying her to the grave.  Alice had with difficulty obtained admission to her mother’s room, and it seemed to her that the news she brought was received with little emotion.  The old woman had an air of dogged weariness; she did not look her daughter in the face, and spoke only in monosyllables.  Her face was yellow, her cheeks like wrinkled parchment.

Manor Park Cemetery lies in the remote East End, and gives sleeping-places to the inhabitants of a vast district.  There Jane’s parents lay, not in a grave to themselves, but buried amidst the nameless dead, in that part of the ground reserved for those who can purchase no more than a portion in the foss which is filled when its occupants reach statutable distance from the surface.  The regions around were then being built upon for the first time; the familiar streets of pale, damp brick were stretching here and there, continuing London, much like the spreading of a disease.  Epping Forest is near at hand, and nearer the dreary expanse of Wanstead Flats.