lers in clothes. She had at
last been constrained to part with her most prized trinkets, even
including those which belonged to her father and the ring that Perigal
had given her, and which she had worn suspended from her neck.

She now had but one and sixpence in the world. The manifold worries and
perplexities consequent upon her poverty had affected her health. She
was no longer able to supply her baby with its natural food. She was
compelled to buy milk from the neighbouring dairy and to sterilise it
to the best of her ability. To add to her distress, her boy's health
suffered from the change of diet. Times without number, she had been on
the point of writing to Perigal to tell him of all she had suffered and
to ask for help, but pride had held her back. Now, the declension in
her boy's health urged her to throw this pride to the winds, to do what
common sense had been suggesting for so long. She had prayed
eloquently, earnestly, often, for Divine assistance: so far, no reply
had been vouchsafed. When evening came, she could bear no longer the
restraint imposed by the four walls of her room. She had had nothing to
eat that day; all she had had the day before was a crust of bread,
which she had gleefully lighted upon at the back of her cupboard. This
she would have shared with Jill, had not her friend despised such plain
fare. Jill had lately developed a habit of running upstairs at meal
times, when, after an interval, she would come down to lick her chops
luxuriously before falling asleep.

Mavis was faint for lack of nourishment; hunger pains tore at her
stomach. She felt that, if she did not get some air, she would die of
the heat and exhaustion. Her baby was happily sleeping soundly, so she
had no compunction in setting out. She crossed Lupus Street, where her
nostrils were offended by the smell of vegetable refuse from the
costermonger stalls, to walk in the direction of Victoria. The air was
vapid and stale, but this did not prevent the dwellers in Pimlico from
sitting at open windows or standing on doorsteps in order to escape the
stuffiness of their houses. They were mostly vulgar lodging-house
people, who were enjoying their ease following upon the burden of the
day; but Mavis found herself envying them, if only for the fact that
their bodies were well supplied with food. Hunger unloosed a savage
rage within her, not only against everyone she encountered, but also
against the conditions of her life. "What w