he sounds, nor smelled the
odours. But he was wrong. She felt them all with ten times the keenness
that he did.

At length their guide halted, breathing heavily, and after fumbling with
a bunch of rusty keys, swung open a door which creaked dismally. A
breath of air, faintly pungent with the odour of drugs, came from the
room beyond.

Judith and Imrie stood silently waiting in the hall. The only sound was
a muttered imprecation from the landlady as she stumbled into something
in her search for the light. When she found it, the jet was clogged,
and it whistled and danced as if animate, piping a march to their
entrance.

The room was incredibly small, one wall being reduced to less than the
height of a man by the sharp slope of the roof: and there was only one
window. It was a vivid moment, even to the stout woman, who did not
understand it at all. To Imrie, who thought he understood it, but did
not, the background of the play was burned into his memory never to be
erased.

He was keenly cognisant of the places where the wood floor showed
through the dingy carpet, and the black spots on the iron bedstead from
which the paint had chipped off. He saw, too, the serrated edges of the
water pitcher, and the discoloured marble top of the rickety wash basin.
The poverty of the little room, intensified by its very neatness, struck
him with a clarity which hurt.

But most of all, he noticed the books. They were everywhere, for the
most part ancient in appearance, but with the subtle difference between
the age of use and that merely of years. There was a set of shelves,
with its flimsy boards bending under them. They were piled under the
bed, in corners, on the mantel ... he stopped when he reached the
mantel, partly from Judith's half-uttered cry, partly from what he saw.

It was a photograph, in a cheap gilt frame, of Judith herself,
apparently cut from some newspaper. It was the only picture in the room.
Aside from the books, it was the only thing which did not belong to the
boarding-house. Imrie felt a lump rise in his throat. He heard Judith's
voice faintly.

She was asking matter-of-fact questions quite calmly, but the effort it
was costing her was manifest. The landlady, who was superstitious, was
very glad that the silence had been broken. She talked volubly.

"Yiss, he was buried all right and reg'lar. No, there was no fun'ral. He
said as how 'twas needless expense. No, there was no friends, 'cept, o'
course, a