returned and returned, but which at last, after one dreadful day, was
seen no more in Museum Buildings. Rachel had laid the ghost at last. But
the conflict remained graven in her face.

* * * * *

On a certain cold winter morning Hester darted across the wet pavement
from the brougham to the untidy entrance of Museum Buildings where
Rachel still lived. It was a miserable day. The streets and bare trees
looked as if they had been drawn in in ink, and the whole carelessly
blotted before it was dry. All the outlines were confused, blurred. The
cold penetrated to the very bones of the shivering city.

Rachel had just come in, wet and tired, bringing with her a roll of
manuscript to be transcribed. A woman waiting for her on the endless
stone stairs had cursed her for taking the bread out of her mouth.

"He always employed me till you came," she shrieked, shaking her fist at
her, "and now he gives it all to you because you're younger and
better-looking."

She gave the woman as much as she dared spare, the calculation did not
take long, and went on climbing the stairs.

Something in the poor creature's words, something vague but repulsive in
her remembrance of the man who paid her for the work by which she could
barely live, fell like lead into Rachel's heart. She looked out dumbly
over the wilderness of roofs. The suffering of the world was eating into
her soul; the suffering of this vast travailing East London, where
people trod each other down to live.