The rest of the family had gone to bed, though scarcely to sleep. Reuben had washed the blood and filth off his face, and had stripped to his shirt, but he felt too sick and restless to lie down. He sat at his window, staring out into the dark gulf of the night.
She said that she must leave directly after supper. Alice fetched her hat, which was not the kind that Reuben had ever seen on country girls, being of the fashionable pork-pie shape. All her clothes were obviously town-made; she wore a blue stuff dress, tight-fitting round her bust and shoulders, full and flounced in the skirtafterwards he heard that Rose had spent some years with relations in London before coming to live at Starvecrow.When the game was finished, De Boteler threw down the cards."Why d?an't you speak to me, Rose?""Because I hate it. It's spoiling your life. It's making a beast and a maniac of you. You think of nothingabsolutely nothingbut a miserable rubbish-heap that most people would be throwing their old kettles on."