At the table in the centre of the room sat his wife, leaning upon her
elbows, her two hands thrust up into her ruffled hair; spread out before
her was a crumpled yesterday's newspaper, and so interested was she to
all appearance in its contents that she neither spoke nor looked up as
Willoughby entered. Around her were the still uncleared tokens of her
last meal: tea-slops, bread-crumbs, and an egg-shell crushed to
fragments upon a plate, which was one of those trifles that set
Willoughby's teeth on edge--whenever his wife ate an egg she persisted
in turning the egg-cup upside down upon the tablecloth, and pounding the
shell to pieces in her plate with her spoon.

The room was repulsive in its disorder. The one lighted burner of the
gaselier, turned too high, hissed up into a long tongue of flame. The
fire smoked feebly under a newly administered shovelful of 'slack', and
a heap of ashes and cinders littered the grate. A pair of walking boots,
caked in dry mud, lay on the hearth-rug just where they had been thrown
off. On the mantelpiece, amidst a dozen other articles which had no
business there, was a bedroom-candlestick; and every single article of
furniture stood crookedly out of its place.

Willoughby took in the whole intolerable picture, and yet spoke with
kindliness. 'Well, Esther! I'm not so late, after all. I hope you did
not find the time dull by yourself?' Then he explained the reason of his
absence. He had met a friend he had not seen for a couple of years, who
had insisted on taking him home to dine.

His wife gave no sign of having heard him; she kept her eyes riveted on
the paper before her.

'You received my wire, of course,' Willoughby went on, 'and did not