Constance announced that she would walk slowly home, down the Cock-yard and along Wedgwood Street.  But when, glancing round in her returned strength, she saw the hedge of faces at the doorway, she agreed with Mr. Shawcross that she would do better to have a cab.  Young Allman went to the door and whistled to the unique cab that stands for ever at the grand entrance to the Town Hall.

“Mr. Matthew will come with me,” said Constance.

“Certainly, with pleasure,” said Matthew.

And she passed through the little crowd of gapers on Mr. Shawcross’s arm.

“Just take care of yourself, missis,” said Mr. Shawcross to her, through the window of the cab.  “It’s fainting weather, and we’re none of us any younger, seemingly.”

She nodded.

“I’m awfully sorry I upset you, Mrs. Povey,” said Matthew, when the cab moved.

She shook her head, refusing his apology as unnecessary.  Tears filled her eyes.  In less than a minute the cab had stopped in front of Constance’s light-grained door.  She demanded her reticule from Matthew, who had carried it since it fell.  She would pay the cabman.  Never before had Matthew permitted a woman to pay for a cab in which he had ridden; but there was no arguing with Constance.  Constance was dangerous.

Amy Bates, still inhabiting the cave, had seen the cab-wheels through the grating of her window and had panted up the kitchen stairs to open the door ere Constance had climbed the steps.  Amy, decidedly over forty, was a woman of authority.  She wanted to know what was the matter, and Constance had to tell her that she had ‘felt unwell.’  Amy took the hat and mantle and departed to prepare a cup of tea.  When they were alone Constance said to Matthew: 

“Now.  Mr. Matthew, will you please tell me?”

“It’s only this,” he began.

And as he told it, in quite a few words, it indeed had the air of being ‘only that.’  And yet his voice shook, in sympathy with the ageing woman’s controlled but visible emotion.  It seemed to him that gladness should have filled the absurd little parlour, but the spirit that presided had no name; it was certainly not joy.  He himself felt very sad, desolated.  He would have given much money to have been spared the experience.  He knew simply that in the memory of the stout, comical, nice woman in the rocking-chair he had stirred old, old things, wakened slumbers that might have been eternal.  He did not know that he was sitting on the very spot where the sofa had been on which Samuel Povey lay when a beautiful and shameless young creature of fifteen extracted his tooth.  He did not know that Constance was sitting in the very chair in which the memorable Mrs. Baines had sat in vain conflict with that same unconquerable girl.  He did not know ten thousand matters that were rushing violently about in the vast heart of Constance.

She cross-questioned him in detail.  But she did not put the questions which he in his innocence expected; such as, if her sister looked old, if her hair was grey, if she was stout or thin.  And until Amy, mystified and resentful, had served the tea, on a little silver tray, she remained comparatively calm.  It was in the middle of a gulp of tea that she broke down, and Matthew had to take the cup from her.