"Your husband's alive. That's a comfort."
"Is it? You wouldn't say so if he was yours. I suppose he's taken her into the streets with him. He's done it before, and got her to beg for him, the brute! It's no use my going out to find her; I shouldn't know where to look."
"That tells a tale, and I am sorry for you, Janey. I mightn't have come if I'd known; but I'd nowhere else to go to."
"Of course you came here. What a time it is since we saw each other!"
"We haven't improved much, either of us," said Martha. "I was hoping you were better off."
"I might have been if my husband was a man. The truth must be told: I couldn't be worse off than I am, I left my Prue hungry, and promised her some supper. I take in washing, Martha, and there was five shillings due to me, but the woman wouldn't pay me to-night; I've got to wait till to-morrow, so Prue will have to go to sleep on an empty stomach. It's hard lines on a sickly child, but what can I do?"
"I can't assist you, Janey. I've spent my last penny."
"There's no help for it, then; we're in the same boat. But tell me where you've been all these years."
"In Manchester. It's a puzzle to me how I got here, but I made up my mind to come to London, to try and screw something out of the man who took me away from home. I've got his address, and I went to his house this afternoon. He was away in the country, they told me, but I couldn't get them to tell me where. There was a man saw me standing at his door after they'd shut it in my face, and he came up and asked if he could do anything for me, and whether I would mind telling him what I wanted with Mr. Fox-Cordery, for that's the name of the villain that deceived me, but I said it was no business of his, and I walked away, and left him looking after me. I wandered about till it was dark, and then I thought I'd come and ask you to let me sleep here to-night. Must I turn out?"
"How can you ask such a thing? You're welcome to stop if you don't mind. This is the only room we've got, and I can't give you anything to eat because the cupboard's as empty as my pocket."
"Oh, I'm used to that! Your heart isn't changed, Janey."
"I couldn't be hard to you if I tried; and I'm not going to try. In Manchester you've been? You disappeared so suddenly and mysteriously----"