are, Juliar!
I see my way."

"What are you going to do?"

"That's tellings. I'll get the dockyment out of her. That's enough for
you, without your coming behind to see. I'll make you a New Year's
present of it, gratish. What'll you do with it?"

"Tear it up--burn it. That'll quiet _her_ off. Lawful Polly! Damn her!"
Really Miss Hawkins made a better figure in a rage, than when merely
vegetating. And yet her angry flush was inartistic, through so much
pearl powder. It made streaks.

It had its effect on Daverill, soothing his complaisant mood, making him
even more cunning than before. "I'll get it out of her, Juliar," said
he, "and you shall have it to tear up, to your heart's content. It don't
make one farthing's worth of difference, that I see. But have it your
own choice. A woman's a woman!" There seems no place in this for Mr.
Wix's favourite adjective; but it called for omission before "farthing's
worth," for all that!

"Not a penny of mine shall go your way, Wix, till I've put it on the
fire, and seen it burn." Miss Hawkins dropped her voice to say:--"Only
keep safe, just the little while left."

After Micky's exit one or two customers called for attention, and
subsided into conversation over one or two quarts. One had a grievance
that rumbled on continuously, barely pausing for intermittent sympathy
from the other or others. Their quarts having been conceded and paid
for, Miss Julia returned. That steak--which you may have felt anxious
about--was being kept hot, and Mr. Wix was tapping the ashes out of his
finished pipe. "There!" said he. "You run your eye through that, and
you'll see there's no more cause to shy off Sapps than any other place."
His exact words suggested recent carnage in Sapps Court, but only for
rhetoric's sake.

Miss Hawkins picked up the letter he threw across the table, and
recognised the one she had stealthily converted to an assurance of the
disappearance of extra police from Sapps Court. She felt very
uncomfortable indeed--but what could she do?

* * * * *

Ill news is said to travel fast, always. It had not done so in this
case, and Sapps Court was still in ignorance of old Maisie's death when
Michael passed under its archway, to experience for the first time the
feelings that beset the bearer of fatal tidings to those it will wound
to hear them far worse than himself. To a not inhuman creature, in such
a case, a title to sorrow, that will lessen