'Nothing, except that you have no charge to make against me. The law
isn't so obliging as all that. Come, we'll take a walk.'
She moved along by his side.
'You coward!' she exclaimed, passionately but with none of the
shrieking virulence of women who like to make a scene in the street.
'You mean, contemptible, cold-blooded man! I suppose you hoped I was
starved to death by this time, or in the workhouse, or--what did
_you_ care where I was! I knew I should find you some day.'
'I rather supposed you would stay on the other side of the water,'
Rodman remarked, glancing at her. 'You're changed a good deal. Now
it's a most extraordinary thing. Not so very long ago I was dreaming
about you, and you were serving at a bar--queer thing, wasn't it?'
They were walking towards Whitehall. When they came at length into
an ill-lighted and quiet spot, the woman stopped.
'Where do you live?' she asked.
'Live? Oh, just out here in Pimlico. Like to see my rooms?'
'What do you mean by talking to me like that? Do you make a joke of
deserting your wife and child for seven years, leaving them without
a penny, going about enjoying yourself, when, for anything you knew,
they were begging their bread? You always were heartless--it was the
blackest day of my life that I met you; and you ask me if I'd like
to see your rooms! What thanks to you that I'm not as vile a
creature as there is in London? How was I to support myself and the
child? What was I to do when they turned me into the streets of New
York because I couldn't pay what you owed them nor the rent of a
room to sleep in? You took good care _you_ never went hungry.
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