nted itself. His appetite had been
whetted by the thirty pounds he had made in the summer, and he wanted now
to make a couple of hundred.

He finished his day's work and got on a tram to go back to Kennington. He
wondered how Mildred would behave that evening. It was a nuisance to think
that she would probably be surly and refuse to answer his questions. It
was a warm evening for the time of year, and even in those gray streets of
South London there was the languor of February; nature is restless then
after the long winter months, growing things awake from their sleep, and
there is a rustle in the earth, a forerunner of spring, as it resumes its
eternal activities. Philip would have liked to drive on further, it was
distasteful to him to go back to his rooms, and he wanted the air; but the
desire to see the child clutched suddenly at his heartstrings, and he
smiled to himself as he thought of her toddling towards him with a crow of
delight. He was surprised, when he reached the house and looked up
mechanically at the windows, to see that there was no light. He went
upstairs and knocked, but got no answer. When Mildred went out she left
the key under the mat and he found it there now. He let himself in and
going into the sitting-room struck a match. Something had happened, he did
not at once know what; he turned the gas on full and lit it; the room was
suddenly filled with the glare and he looked round. He gasped. The whole
place was wrecked. Everything in it had been wilfully destroyed. Anger
seized him, and he rushed into Mildred's room. It was dark and empty. When
he had got a light he saw that she had taken away all her things and the
baby's (he had noticed on entering that the go-cart was not in its usual
place on the landing, but thought Mildred had taken the baby out;) and all
the things on the washing-stand had been broken, a knife had been drawn
cross-ways through the seats of the two chairs, the pillow had been slit
open, there were large gashes in the sheets and the counterpane, the
looking-glass appeared to have been broken with a hammer. Philip was
bewildered. He went into his own room, and here too everything was in
confusion. The basin and the ewer had been smashed, the looking-glass was
in fragments, and the sheets were in ribands. Mildred had made a slit
large enough to put her hand into the pillow and had scattered the
feathers about the room. She had jabbed a knife into the blankets. On the
dressing-tab