And in the meantime Alice sat in her house at Wimbledon, abandoned.  The solitude seemed to be driving her mad.  Rodman came down very occasionally for a few hours in the daytime, but never passed a night with her.  He told her he had a great affair on hand, a very great affair, which was to make their fortunes ten times over.  She must be patient; women couldn’t understand business.  If she resisted his coaxing and grumbled, he always had his threat ready.  He would realise his profits and make off, leaving her in the lurch.  Weeks became months.  In pique at the betrayal of her famous stratagem, Alice had wanted to dismiss her servant, but Rodman objected to this.  She was driven by desperation to swallow her pride and make a companion of the girl.  But she did not complain to her of her husband—­partly out of self-respect, partly because she was afraid to.  Indeed it was a terrible time for the poor Princess.  She spent the greater part of every day in a state of apathy; for the rest she wept.  Many a time she was on the point of writing to Richard, but could not quite bring herself to that.  She could not leave the house, for it rained or snowed day after day; the sun seemed to have deserted the heavens as completely as joy her life.  She grew feeble-minded, tried to amuse herself with childish games, played ‘Beggar My Neighbour’ with the servant for hours at night.  She had fits of hysteria, and terrified her sole companion with senseless laughter, or with alarming screams.  Reading she was no longer story.  And her glass—­as well as her husband—­told her that equal to; after a few pages she lost her understanding of a she suffered daily in her appearance.  Her hair was falling; she one day told the servant that she would soon have to buy a wig.  Poor Alice!  And she had not even the resource of railing against the social state.  What a pity she had never studied that subject!

So the time went on till February of the new year.  Alice’s release was at hand.

CHAPTER XXXIII

’Arry Mutimer, not long after he left his mother’s house for good, by chance met Rodman in the City.  Presuming on old acquaintance, he accosted the man of business with some familiarity; it was a chance of getting much-needed assistance once more.  But Rodman was not disposed to renew the association He looked into ’Arry’s face with a blank stare, asked contemptuously, ‘Who are you?’ and pursued his walk.

’Arry hoped that he might some day have a chance of being even with Mr. Rodman.

As indeed he had.  One evening towards the end of February, ’Arry was loafing about Brixton.  He knew a certain licensed victualler in those parts, a man who had ere now given him casual employment, and after a day of fasting he trudged southwards to see if his friend would not at all events be good for a glass of beer and a hunch of bread and cheese.  Perhaps he might also supply the coppers to pay for a bed in the New Cut.  To his great disappointment, the worthy victualler was away from home; the victualler’s wife had no charitable tendencies.  ’Arry whined to her, but only got for an answer that times was as ’ard with her as with anyone else.  The representative of unemployed labour went his way despondently, hands thrust deep in pockets, head slouching forwards, shoulders high up against the night blast.