ouse was sunk a little below the level of the lane, so that he
seemed to be looking straight down into a pit of yellow light
hollowed out of the blackness. Two figures sat knitting at the
window on the edge of the pit. His mother and Kate. A third, in the
center of the light, leaned her elbows on the table and propped her
head on her hands. He knew her for Minnie by her red hair. Beyond
them a side window was open to the night.

There were two ways by which he could approach them. He could go
boldly in at the iron gate and up the flagged path to the front
door. Or he could go round to the side, up the turning of the lane,
where the garden wall rose high, into the back garden. Thence,
through a thick yew arch into a narrow path between the end of the
house and the high wall. By the one way they would be certain to see
him through the front window. By the other he would see them
(through the side window) without being seen. Owing to a certain
moisture and redness about his eyes and nose he was not yet quite
ready to be seen. Therefore he chose the side way. Sitting on a
garden seat in the embrasure of the arch, he commanded a slanting
but uninterrupted view of the room and its inmates.

There, in the quiet, he could hear the clicking needles of the
knitters, and the breathing of the red-haired woman. And he longed
with a great longing for the sound of their voices. If one of them
would only speak!

III

"The question is"--it was the red-haired girl who spoke, and her
tone suggested that the silence marked a lull in some debate--"how
much do you mean to advance me this year from the housekeeping?"

The younger of the two knitters answered without looking up.

"I've told you before; it depends upon circumstances."

"I see no circumstances."

"Don't you? I thought it was you who were so sure about Stephen's
coming home?"

"That makes no difference. If he doesn't come I shall go away. If
he does I shall go away and stay away. In that case I shall want
more money, shan't I? not less." Minnie dug her sharp elbows into
the table and thrust out her chin.

"You'll have to want," said Kate. "You know perfectly well that if
he is here none of us can go away. We must keep together."

"Why must we?"

"Because it's cheaper."

"And suppose I choose to go? What's to keep me?"

"To _keep_ you?"

"I see. You mean there won't be a penny to keep me?"

Kate was silent.

"If it hadn't been for Stephen I could have kep