I've written on a piece of paper here that you're
to be given any letters of mine. Give it to me somehow when no one's
looking. Do you understand?"
Jane nodded her head. Maggie gave her the note and also half-a-
crown, but Jane pushed back the money.
"I don't want no money," she said in a hoarse whisper. "You're the
only one here decent to me."
At that moment the kitchen door opened and Martha appeared. When she
saw Jane she came up to her and said: "Now then, idling again! What
about the potatoes?"
She looked at Maggie with her usual surly suspicion.
"I came down for a candle," Maggie said, "for my room. Will you give
me one, please?"
Jane had vanished.
Martin, meanwhile, after Maggie left him, had returned home in no
happy state. There had leapt upon him again that mood of sullen
impatient rebellion that he knew so well--a mood that really was
like a possession, so that, struggle as he--might, he seemed always
in the grip of some iron-fingered menacing figure.
It was possession in a sense that to many normal, happy people in
this world is so utterly unknown that they can only scornfully name
it weakness and so pass on their way.
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