Beneath the seeming acquiescence of a man subject to domination from his
birth up, those four words covered in Hughs such a whirlpool of surging
sensation, such ferocity of bitterness, and madness, and defiance, that
no outpouring could have appreciably relieved its course. The same four
words summed up in Mrs. Hughs so strange a mingling of fear,
commiseration, loyalty, shame, and trembling curiosity at the new factor
which had come into the life of all this little family walking
giraffe-like back to Kensington that to have gone beyond them would have
been like plunging into a wintry river. To their son the four words were
as a legend of romance, conjuring up no definite image, lighting merely
the glow of wonder.

"Don't lag, Stanley. Keep up with your father."

The little boy took three steps at an increased pace, then fell behind
again. His black eyes seemed to answer: 'You say that because you don't
know what else to say.' And without alteration in their giraffe-like
formation, but again in silence, the three proceeded.

In the heart of the seamstress doubt and fear were being slowly knit into
dread of the first sound to pass her husband's lips. What would he ask?
How should she answer? Would he talk wild, or would he talk sensible?
Would he have forgotten that young girl, or had he nursed and nourished
his wicked fancy in the house of grief and silence? Would he ask where
the baby was? Would he speak a kind word to her? But alongside her dread
there was guttering within her the undying resolution not to 'let him go
from her, if it were ever so, to that young girl'

"Don't lag, Stanley!"

At the reiteration of those words Hughs spoke.

"Let the boy alone! You'll be nagging at the baby next!"

Hoarse and grating, like sounds issuing from a damp vault, was this first
speech.

The seamstress's eyes brimmed over.

"I won't get the chance," she stammered out. "He's gone!"

Hughs' teeth gleamed like those of a dog at bay.

"Who's taken him? You let me know the name."

Tears rolled down the seamstress's cheeks; she could not answer. Her
little son's thin voice rose instead:

"Baby's dead. We buried him in the ground. I saw it. Mr. Creed came in
the cab with me."

White flecks appeared suddenly at the corners of Hughs' lips. He wiped
the back of his hand across his mouth, and once more, giraffe-like, the
little family marched on....

"Westminister," in his threadbare summer jacket--for t