The figure moved towards the door.

“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” said Mr. Peter Hope irritably.

The figure, with its hand upon the door, stood still.

“Are you going back to Hammond’s?”

“No. I’ve finished there. Only took me on for a couple o’ weeks, while one of the gals was ill. She came back this morning.”

“Who are your people?”

Tommy seemed puzzled. “What d’ye mean?”

“Well, whom do you live with?”

“Nobody.”

“You’ve got nobody to look after you—to take care of you?”

“Take care of me! D’ye think I’m a bloomin’ kid?”

“Then where are you going to now?”

“Going? Out.”

Peter Hope’s irritation was growing.

“I mean, where are you going to sleep? Got any money for a lodging?”

“Yes, I’ve got some money,” answered Tommy. “But I don’t think much o’ lodgings. Not a particular nice class as you meet there. I shall sleep out to-night. ’Tain’t raining.”

Elizabeth uttered a piercing cry.

“Serves you right!” growled Peter savagely. “How can anyone help treading on you when you will get just between one’s legs. Told you of it a hundred times.”

The truth of the matter was that Peter was becoming very angry with himself. For no reason whatever, as he told himself, his memory would persist in wandering to Ilford Cemetery, in a certain desolate corner of which lay a fragile little woman whose lungs had been but ill adapted to breathing London fogs; with, on the top of her, a still smaller and still more fragile mite of humanity that, in compliment to its only relative worth a penny-piece, had been christened Thomas—a name common enough in all conscience, as Peter had reminded himself more than once. In the name of common sense, what had dead and buried Tommy Hope to do with this affair? The whole thing was the veriest sentiment, and sentiment was Mr. Peter Hope’s abomination. Had he not penned articles innumerable pointing out its baneful influence upon the age? Had he not always condemned it, wherever he had come across it in play or book? Now and then the suspicion had crossed Peter’s mind that, in spite of all this, he was somewhat of a sentimentalist himself—things had suggested this to him. The fear had always made him savage.

“You wait here till I come back,” he growled, seizing the astonished Tommy by the worsted comforter and spinning it into the centre of the room. “Sit down, and don’t you dare to move.” And Peter went out and slammed the door behind him.

“Bit off his chump, ain’t he?” remarked Tommy to Elizabeth, as the sound of Peter’s descending footsteps died away. People had a way of addressing remarks to Elizabeth. Something in her manner invited this.