the word. Kirke turned once more to the window. The lorry had disappeared. Pearl and Edwin Silk, the remittance man, were standing together by the pump. His thin neck was bent as he looked into her face. Was he beginning to pay Pearl attention? Kirke focused his eyes on them with a boring expression, like two gimlets. Pearl evidently said she was thirsty, for Silk pumped a glass of water for her. She would not drink from the common vessel but poured a little into her pink palm and drank daintily from it. When she had finished Silk snatched up her hand and put it to his mouth, drinking the last drops greedily from it. Kirke's thin lips stretched in a grin; he bent closer to the pane.
But now a sound other than the scratching of Lovering's nib shot through his sensitive nerves. It was the sound of a sob. A woman's sob. The transom above his door was open and, turning his head sideways towards it like a shrewd, aquiline bird, he made out that the second sob came from the room across the passage. Silently he rose and went to the door, frowning down at Lovering as he stood with his hand on the knob. No, he would not tell Lovering. Let him go on with his stupid letter. He would only spoil things. He stole out into the passage and closed the door behind him.
"Wait for me, Duncan," called Lovering. "I'll be done in a minute."
Kirke's fingers twitched. Gladly would he have throttled his friend. He looked back into the room, smiling. "All richt," he said. "I'll just go down as far as the reading-room and leave this paper in."
He closed the door again and fixed his attention on the door opposite. It was Jimmy Sykes' door. The transom was closed but the sound of another sob came appealingly. He tiptoed to the door and put his eye to the keyhole.
