iation to us there had to be
an Inquest. And they threw out things.... It's why we moved to
Haggerston. It's the worst that ever happened to us in all our lives.
Far worse. Worse than having the things sold or the children with
scarlet fever and having to burn everything.... I don't like to talk
about it. I can't help it but I don't....

"I don't know why I talk to you as I do, Lady Harman, but I don't seem
to mind talking to you. I don't suppose I've opened my mouth to anyone
about it, not for years--except to one dear friend I've got--her who
persuaded me to be a church member. But what I've always said and what I
will always say is this, that I don't believe any evil of Father, I
don't believe, I won't ever believe he took his life. I won't even
believe he was in drink. I don't know how he got in the river, but I'm
certain it wasn't so. He was a weak man, was Father, I've never denied
he was a weak man. But a harder working man than he was never lived. He
worried, anyone would have worried seeing the worries he had. The shop
wasn't paying as it was; often we never tasted meat for weeks together,
and then there came one of these Internationals, giving overweight and
underselling...."

"One of these Internationals?"

"Yes, I don't suppose you've ever heard of them. They're in the poorer
neighbourhoods chiefly. They sell teas and things mostly now but they
began as bakers' shops and what they did was to come into a place and
undersell until all the old shops were ruined and shut up. That was what
they tried to do and Father hadn't no more chance amongst them than a
mouse in a trap.... It was just like being run over. All the trade that
stayed with us after a bit was Bad Debts. You can't blame people I
suppose for going where they get more and pay less, and it wasn't till
we'd all gone right away to Haggerston that they altered things and put
the prices up again. Of course Father lost heart and all that. He didn't
know what to do, he'd sunk all he had in the shop; he just sat and moped
about. Really,--he was pitiful. He wasn't able to sleep; he used to get
up at nights and go about downstairs. Mother says she found him once
sweeping out the bakehouse at two o'clock in the morning. He got it into
his head that getting up like that would help him. But I don't believe
and I won't believe he wouldn't have seen it through if he could. Not to
my dying day will I believe that...."

Lady Harman reflected. "But couldn't he ha