He went out with a fire at his heart that made him insensitive to the frost without.  He walked a mile out of his way mechanically, then, perceiving his stupidity, avenged it by jumping into a hansom.  He dared not think how low his funds were running.  When he got home he forgot to have his tea, crouching in dumb misery in his easy chair, while the coals in the grate faded like the sunset from red to grey, and the dusk of twilight deepened into the gloom of night, relieved only by a gleam from the street lamp.

The noise of the door opening made him look up.

“Beg pardon, sir.  I didn’t yer ye come in.”

It was Mary Ann’s timid accents.  Lancelot’s head drooped again on his breast.  He did not answer.

“You’ve bin and let your fire go out, sir.”

“Don’t bother!” he grumbled.  He felt a morbid satisfaction in this aggravation of discomfort, almost symbolic as it was of his sunk fortunes.

“Oh, but it’ll freeze ’ard to-night, sir.  Let me make it up.”  Taking his sullen silence for consent she ran downstairs and reappeared with some sticks.  Soon there were signs of life, which Mary Ann assiduously encouraged by blowing at the embers with her mouth.  Lancelot looked on in dull apathy, but as the fire rekindled and the little flames leapt up and made Mary Ann’s flushed face the one spot of colour and warmth in the cold dark room, Lancelot’s torpidity vanished suddenly.  The sensuous fascination seized him afresh, and ere he was aware of it he was lifting the pretty face by the chin.

“I’m so sorry to be so troublesome, Mary Ann.  There, you shall give me a kiss to show you bear no malice.”

The warm lips obediently met his, and for a moment Lancelot forgot his worries while he held her soft cheek against his.

This time the shock of returning recollection was not so violent as before.  He sat up in his chair, but his right arm still twined negligently round her neck, the fingers patting the warm face.  “A fellow must have something to divert his mind,” he thought, “or he’d go mad.  And there’s no harm done—­the poor thing takes it as a kindness, I’m sure.  I suppose her life’s dull enough.  We’re a pair.”  He felt her shoulders heaving a little, as if she were gulping down something.  At last she said:  “You ain’t troublesome.  I ought to ha’ yerd ye come in.”

He released her suddenly.  Her words broke the spell.  The vulgar accent gave him a shudder.

“Don’t you hear a bell ringing?” he said with dual significance.

“Nosir,” said Mary Ann, ingenuously.  “I’d yer it in a moment if there was.  I yer it in my dreams, I’m so used to it.  One night I dreamt the missus was boxin’ my yers and askin’ me if I was deaf and I said to ’er—­”

“Can’t you say ’her’?” cried Lancelot, cutting her short impatiently.

“Her,” said Mary Ann.

“Then why do you say ’’er’?”

“Missus told me to.  She said my own way was all wrong.”