She held in her hand the fragment of a hat, and her
dolman had disappeared. Her husband was not in much better plight;
his waistcoat and shirt were rent open, his coat was filth-smeared,
and it seemed likely that he had lost the sight of one eye. Sitting
there in drunken lassitude, he breathed nothing but threats of
future vengeance.
An hour later noises of a familiar kind sounded beneath the window.
A woman's voice was raised in the fury of mad drunkenness, and a man
answered her with threats and blows.
'That's mother,' sobbed Pennyloaf. 'I knew she wouldn't get over
to-day. She never did get over a Bank-holiday.'
Mrs. Candy had taken the pledge when her husband consented to return
and live with her. Unfortunately she did not at the same time
transfer herself to a country where there are no beer-shops and no
Bank-holidays. Short of such decisive change, what hope for her?
Bob was already asleep, breathing stertorously. As for Pennyloaf,
she was so overwearied that hours passed before oblivion fell upon
her aching eyelids. She was thinking all the time that on the morrow
it would be necessary to pawn her wedding-ring.
CHAPTER XIII
THE BRINGER OF ILL NEWS
Knowing the likelihood that Clara Hewett would go from home for
Bank-holiday, Sidney made it his request before he left Hanover
Street on Sunday night that Jane might be despatched on her errand
at an early hour next morning.
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