which sent a chill into their
very souls; foot passengers came along at rare intervals, holding up
umbrellas, and staring straight in front of them as they hurried along
in the damp and cold; a cab would pass rapidly by, splashing up the
mud on each side. The benches were deserted, except, perhaps, for some
poor homeless wretch who could afford no shelter, and, huddled up in a
corner, with his head buried in his breast, was sleeping heavily, like
a dead man. The wet mud made Liza's skirts cling about her feet, and
the damp would come in and chill her legs and creep up her body, till
she shivered, and for warmth pressed herself close against Jim.
Sometimes they would go into the third-class waiting-rooms at Waterloo
or Charing Cross and sit there, but it was not like the park or the
Embankment on summer nights; they had warmth, but the heat made their
wet clothes steam and smell, and the gas flared in their eyes, and
they hated the people perpetually coming in and out, opening the doors
and letting in a blast of cold air; they hated the noise of the guards
and porters shouting out the departure of the trains, the shrill
whistling of the steam-engine, the hurry and bustle and confusion.
About eleven o'clock, when the trains grew less frequent, they got
some quietness; but then their minds were troubled, and they felt
heavy, sad and miserable.

One evening they had been sitting at Waterloo Station; it was foggy
outside--a thick, yellow November fog, which filled the waiting-room,
entering the lungs, and making the mouth taste nasty and the eyes
smart. It was about half-past eleven, and the station was unusually
quiet; a few passengers, in wraps and overcoats, were walking to and
fro, waiting for the last train, and one or two porters were standing
about yawning. Liza and Jim had remained for an hour in perfect
silence, filled with a gloomy unhappiness, as of a great weight on
their brains. Liza was sitting forward, with her elbows on her knees,
resting her face on her hands.

'I wish I was straight,' she said at last, not looking up.

'Well, why won't yer come along of me altogether, an' you'll be
arright then?' he answered.

'Na, that's no go; I can't do thet.' He had often asked her to live
with him entirely, but she had always refused.

'You can come along of me, an' I'll tike a room in a lodgin' 'ouse in
'Olloway, an' we can live there as if we was married.'

'Wot abaht yer work?'

'I can get work over the ot