silence: a door closed: I heard slow heavy footsteps with clamping heels go down the stairs. My door was ajar.—I got up, and closed and carefully latched it.
'What would she do?'
'What is the girl to me?' I thought. 'There are hundreds like—what she will be, in this city. And one more: "What is one among so many?" All soulless things too—like me! And useless things too, who will try to do no more than live in the sun, breed maggots, and perish. Whereas I What will she do?
I came to my bed and lay, face downwards, on it.
'… That three shillings perhaps means life,' I thought again, 'who knows if I can get any work? and how to live in the meantime? And I'm so frightfully weak.… Means life: means hope, and all my dreams! itteans everything! That is its meaning. And, if I give it up.… No; I won't give it up! I won't give up my life! It is the only thing here: the rest is but hope and fancy.'
I heard a board creak.
Some one went down the stairs quietly but quickly. … Who was it?—Along the passage. The door closed. It was just beneath my head. I seemed to see it, and her. I got on to my knees on the bed: pulled up the piece of linen, that hung half across the window, and looked out.—She was hurrying across the road, with her head bent down, and her hands hanging beside her.
'Let her go?' I thought, 'what is she to me? Let her go. Let her go.—Why, see: if I had gone out in the morning, as I had intended, I might very well never have known anything about it. I will not do it. Why, now' I stopped.
'You coward!' I cried, 'you miserable coward!'
I covered my face with my hands, pressing my elbows against my body and tightening eveiy muscle in my body.
At last I moaned:
'If I only thought there was a God—who saw us! both!—A good God—who would not leave us die—despairing—I would give it her!—But—as it is—I—I'
'Coward!' I cried, almost choking. 'Coward!… You cannot let her go!'
