`In my trouble!' Mrs Verloc repeated, slowly.

`Yes.'

`And do you know what my trouble is?' she whispered with strange intensity.

`Ten minutes after seeing the evening paper,' explained Ossipon with ardour, `I met a fellow whom you may have seen once or twice at the shop perhaps, and I had a talk with him which left no doubt whatever in my mind. Then I started for here, wondering whether you - I've been fond of you beyond words ever since I set eyes on your face,' he cried, as if unable to command his feelings.

Comrade Ossipon assumed correctly that no woman was capable of wholly disbelieving such a statement. But he did not know that Mrs Verloc accepted it with all the fierceness the instinct of self preservation in parts to the grip of a drowning person. To the widow of Mr Verloc the robust anarchist was like a radiant messenger of life.

They walked slowly, in step. `I thought so,' Mrs Verloc murmured, faintly.

`You've read it in my eyes,' suggested Ossipon with great assurance.

`Yes,' she breathed out into his inclined ear.

`A love like mine could not be concealed from a woman like you,' he went on, trying to detach his mind from material considerations, such as the business value of the shop, and the amount of money Mr Verloc might have left in the bank. He applied himself to the sentimental side of the affair. In his heart of hearts he was a little shocked at his success. Verloc had been a good fellow, and certainly a very decent husband as far as one could see. However, Comrade Ossipon was not going to quarrel with his luck for the sake of a dead man. Resolutely he suppressed his sympathy for the ghost of Comrade Verloc, and went on:

`I could not conceal it. I was too full of you. I daresay you could not help seeing it in my eyes. But I could not guess it. You were always so distant... '

`What else did you expect?' burst out Mrs Verloc. `I was a respectable woman--'

She paused, then added, as if speaking to herself, in sinister resentment: `Till he made me what I am.'

Ossipon let that pass, and took up his running.

`He never did seem to me to be quite worthy of you,' he began, throwing loyalty to the winds. `You were worthy of a better fate.'

Mrs Verloc interrupted bitterly:

`Better fate! He cheated me out of seven years of life.'

`You seemed to live so happily with him.' Ossipon tried to exculpate the lukewarmness of his past conduct. `It's that what's made me timid. You seemed to love him. I was surprised - and jealous,' he added.

`Love him!' Mrs Verloc cried out in a whisper full of scorn and rage. `Love him! I was a good wife to him. I am a respectable woman. You thought I loved him! You did! Look here, Tom--'

The sound of this name thrilled Comrade Ossipon with pride. For his name was Alexander, and he was called Tom by arrangement with the most familiar of his intimates. It was a name of friendship - of moments of expansion. He had no idea that she had ever heard it used by anybody. It was apparent that she had not only caught it, but had treasured it in her memory - perhaps in her heart.