''Lift your skirts, dear, above the flames,'' says the woman, going up before me. Richard comes, very close, behind.
At the top there are doors, all shut: the woman opens the first, and shows me through it to a small square room. A bed, a wash-hand stand, a box, a chest of drawers, a horse-hair screen—and a window, to which I instantly cross. It is narrow, and has a bleached net scarf hung before it. The hasp has been broken long ago: the sashes are fixed together with nails. The view is of a slip of muddy street, a house with ointment-coloured shutters with heart-shaped holes, a wall of brick, with loops and spirals marked upon it in yellow chalks.
I stand and study it all, my bag still clutched to me, but my arms growing heavy. I hear Richard pause, then climb a second set of stairs; then he walks about the room above my head. The woman crosses to the wash-hand stand and pours a little water from the jug mto the bowl. Now I see my mistake, in coming so quickly to the window: for she stands between me and the door. She is stout, and