foresight of deeds which should draw the eyes of men upon him, which should shout his name abroad, softened his judgments with the charity of satisfied ambition.  He would be the glorified representative of his class.  He would show the world how a self-taught working man conceived the duties and privileges of wealth.  He would shame those dunder-headed, callous-hearted aristocrats, those ravening bourgeois.  Opportunity—­what else had he wanted?  No longer would his voice be lost in petty lecture-halls, answered only by the applause of a handful of mechanics.  Ere many months had passed, crowds should throng to hear him; his gospel would be trumpeted over the land.  To what might he not attain?  The educated, the refined, men and women—­

He was at the entrance of a dark passage, where his feet stayed themselves by force of habit.  He turned out of the street, and walked more slowly towards the house in which Emma Vine and her sisters lived.  Having reached the door, he paused, but again took a few paces forward.  Then he came back and rang the uppermost of five bells.  In waiting, he looked vaguely up and down the street.

It was Emma herself who opened to him.  The dim light showed a smile of pleasure and surprise.

‘You’ve come to ask about Jane?’ she said.  ’She hasn’t been quite so bad since last night.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.  Can I come up?’

‘Will you?’

He entered, and Emma closed the door.  It was pitch dark.

‘I wish I’d brought a candle down,’ Emma said, moving back along the passage.  ‘Mind there’s a pram at the foot of the stairs.’

The perambulator was avoided successfully by both, and they ascended the bare boards of the staircase.  On each landing prevailed a distinct odour; first came the damp smell of newly-washed clothes, then the scent of fried onions, then the workroom of some small craftsman exhaled varnish.  The topmost floor seemed the purest; it was only stuffy.

Richard entered an uncarpeted room which had to serve too many distinct purposes to allow of its being orderly in appearance.  In one corner was a bed, where two little children lay asleep; before the window stood a sewing-machine, about which was heaped a quantity of linen; a table in the midst was half covered with a cloth, on which was placed a loaf and butter, the other half being piled with several dresses requiring the needle.  Two black patches on the low ceiling showed in what positions the lamp stood by turns.

Emma’s eldest sister was moving about the room.  Hers were the children; her husband had been dead a year or more.  She was about thirty years of age, and had a slatternly appearance; her face was peevish, and seemed to grudge the half-smile with which it received the visitor.

‘You’ve no need to look round you,’ she said.  ’We’re in & regular pig-stye, and likely to be.  Where’s there a chair?’

She shook some miscellaneous articles on to the floor to provide a seat.