tramps, and
even a nest of thieves I had heard was not far off. "What the devil does
she mean?--what game is up?" came across my mind. "I won't put out the
light," I said. "Well hide it in the cupboard, lock the door, and if any
one knocks don't answer,--perhaps my late lodger's friends may come, not
knowing she has gone,--I don't want any one to know any one is in the
room." This was all said in a whisper; she went out, shut the door
gently, and walked to the back of the house, leaving her three
shillings. I heard her footsteps, and faintly afterwards the sounds of
talking in the back room,--the partitions in the poor houses were thin.

I dried my tool with my shirt and sat on the bed, looking round at the
poor room, wondering what dodge was up. She did not return, and thinking
over the incidents, came to the conclusion that she was not a gay woman.
There was just that difference in manners, in getting on to the bed,
in taking her pleasures, and in her whole behaviour about the fucking,
which there always is between a woman however loose she may be, but who
does not fuck professionally, and the regular trader in her charms. I
saw it then, and I see it still clearer writing about it now.

Nevertheless I began to think of leaving, feeling uneasy as she did not
return for more than ten minutes. With my hat on, I was just about to
run off, after hearing a man's footsteps pass along the passage, when I
heard a voice cry up the stairs, "Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Brown, I'm going out
to get a mouthful of fresh air,--if the children cry, will you see to
them?" A shrill voice replied, a female step passed my door, into the
street. A second afterwards the door slowly opened (I had unlocked it as
I heard what I supposed were her footsteps going along the passage). In
she came, holding up her finger for silence, then quietly closing and
locking the door, she stood smiling at me. "Don't make a noise, they
think I am out," she said.

I looked fully at her now, my lust satisfied. She was a big woman of say
thirty years of age, coarse, common, but clean; she had a dress on which
opened in front like that of a woman who suckles, and some sort of cap
on her head. I did not know what to make of it, for she stood as if
waiting for me to speak. I did not, and taking the candle, she put it
down on the floor by the side of the drawers, or something of the sort,
and remarked, "They won't see the light through the crack of the door
now." Again a man'