"
"Then stay, nurse."
"I must go to my baby, ma'am."
"Then you shall go at once--this very instant."
"I'm going this very instant, as soon as I've put on my hat and jacket."
"You had better take your box with you. If you don't I'll shall have it
thrown into the street."
"I daresay you're cruel enough to do that if the law allows you, only be
careful that it do."
XIX
The moment Esther got out of the house in Curzon Street she felt in her
pocket for her money. She had only a few pence; enough for her 'bus fare,
however, and her thoughts did not go further. She was absorbed by one
desire, how to save her child--how to save him from Mrs. Spires, whom she
vaguely suspected; from the world, which called him a bastard and denied
to him the right to live. And she sat as if petrified in the corner of the
'bus, seeing nothing but a little street of four houses, facing some
haylofts, the low-pitched kitchen, the fat woman, the cradle in the
corner. The intensity and the oneness of her desire seemed to annihilate
time, and when she got out of the omnibus she walked with a sort of
animal-like instinct straight for the house. There was a light in the
kitchen just as she expected, and as she descended the four wooden steps
into the area she looked to see if Mrs. Spires was there.
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