et cleared; Esther
turned back and walked instinctively homewards--to Royal Street. Her
soul was full of the sense of the futility of life; yet the sight of the
great shabby house could still give her a chill. Outside the door a
wizened old woman with a chronic sniff had established a stall for
wizened old apples, but Esther passed her by heedless of her stare, and
ascended the two miry steps that led to the mud-carpeted passage.

The apple-woman took her for a philanthropist paying a surprise visit to
one of the families of the house, and resented her as a spy. She was
discussing the meanness of the thing with the pickled-herring dealer
next door, while Esther was mounting the dark stairs with the confidence
of old habit. She was making automatically for the garret, like a
somnambulist, with no definite object--morbidly drawn towards the old
home. The unchanging musty smells that clung to the staircase flew to
greet her nostrils, and at once a host of sleeping memories started to
life, besieging her and pressing upon her on every side. After a
tumultuous intolerable moment a childish figure seemed to break from the
gloom ahead--the figure of a little girl with a grave face and candid
eyes, a dutiful, obedient shabby little girl, so anxious to please her
schoolmistress, so full of craving to learn and to be good, and to be
loved by God, so audaciously ambitious of becoming a teacher, and so
confident of being a good Jewess always. Satchel in hand, the little
girl sped up the stairs swiftly, despite her cumbrous, slatternly boots,
and Esther, holding her bag, followed her more slowly, as if she feared
to contaminate her by the touch of one so weary-worldly-wise, so full of
revolt and despair.

All at once Esther sidled timidly towards the balustrade, with an
instinctive movement, holding her bag out protectingly. The figure
vanished, and Esther awoke to the knowledge that "Bobby" was not at his
post. Then with a flash came the recollection of Bobby's mistress--the
pale, unfortunate young seamstress she had so unconscionably neglected.
She wondered if she were alive or dead. A waft of sickly odors surged
from below; Esther felt a deadly faintness coming over her; she had
walked far, and nothing had yet passed her lips since yesterday's
dinner, and at this moment, too, an overwhelming terrifying feeling of
loneliness pressed like an icy hand upon her heart. She felt that in
another instant she must swoon, there, upon the