en try to get new employment, feeling
that such a show of honest purpose was useless. Corruption was eating
to his heart; from every interview with Clem he came away a feebler and
a baser being. And upon the unresisting creature who shared his home he
had begun to expend the fury of his self-condemnation.

He hated her because Clem bade him do so. He hated her because her
suffering rebuked him, because he must needs be at the cost of keeping
her alive, because he was bound to her.

As she moved painfully about the room he watched her with cruel,
dangerous eyes. There was a thought tormenting his brain, a terrifying
thought he had pledged himself not to dismiss, and it seemed to
exasperate him against Pennyloaf. He had horrible impulses, twitches
along his muscles; every second the restraint of keeping in one
position grew more unendurable, yet he feared to move.

Pennyloaf had the ill-luck to drop a saucer, and it broke on the floor.
In the same instant he leapt up and sprang on her, seized her brutally
by the shoulders and flung her with all his force against the nearest
wall. At her scream the child set up a shrill cry, and this increased
his rage. With his clenched fist he dealt blow after blow at the
half-prostrate woman, speaking no word, but uttering a strange sound,
such as might come from some infuriate animal. Pennyloaf still
screamed, till at length the door was thrown open and their neighbour,
Mrs. Griffin, showed herself.

'Well, I never!' she cried, wrathfully, rushing upon Bob. 'Now you just
stop that, young man! I thought it 'ud be comin' to this before long. I
saw you was goin' that way.'

The mildness of her expressions was partly a personal characteristic,
partly due to Mrs. Griffin's very large experience of such scenes as
this. Indignant she might be, but the situation could not move her to
any unwonted force of utterance. Enough that Bob drew back as soon as
he was bidden, and seemed from his silence to be half-ashamed of
himself.

Pennyloaf let herself lie at full length on the floor, her hands
clutched protectingly about her head; she sobbed in a quick, terrified
way, and appeared powerless to stop, even when Mrs. Griffin tried to
raise her.

'What's he been a-usin' you like this for?' the woman kept asking.
'There, there now! He shan't hit you no more, he shan't!'

Whilst she spoke Bob turned away and went from the room.

From Merlin Place he struck off into Pentonville and walked towa