What she went through on
landing, how she finally obtained her husband's release, and what
explanations passed between the reunited pair, must be left to
the reader's imagination, for Mrs. Quelch never told the story.
Twenty-four hours later a four-wheeled cab drew up at the Quelchs'
door, and from it descended, first a stately female, and then a
woe-begone little man, in a soft felt hat and a red necktie, both
sorely crushed and soiled, with a black bag in his hand. "Is there
a fire in the kitchen?" asked Mrs. Quelch the moment she set foot
in the house. Being assured that there was, she proceeded down
the kitchen stairs, Quelch meekly following her. "Now," she said,
pointing to the black bag, "those--things!" Benjamin opened the bag,
and tremblingly took out the frilled night-dress and the cigars.
His wife pointed to the fire, and he meekly laid them on it. "Now
that necktie." The necktie followed the cigars. "And that thing;"
and the hat crowned the funeral pile.
The smell was peculiar, and to the ordinary nose disagreeable, but
to Mrs. Quelch it was as the odour of burnt incense. She watched
the heap as it smouldered away, and finally dispersed the embers
by a vigorous application of the poker.
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