A Shadowed Love

Nothing from the hot languid street below but a grumbling, whining voice or two. A mean London street off the river in August. How men who know the country and have the scent of the sap in their nostrils can toil and moil under such conditions is known only to themselves and their God.
High up a cheap low-flash lamp added to the heat of a third-floor room, and gave a spice of danger to the occupant's more sordid condition. The man, bending over a penny exercise book, rose as there came from below a succession of knocks growing gradually louder. The dull double thud came presently far down below. A small servant came presently and laid a letter by the writer's elbow.
It was no manuscript returned or stereo-typed note of acceptance, nothing more than a curt intimation that unless the rent of the third floor of No. 19, Pant-street, was paid before twelve o'clock to-morrow a distress would be levied. These things are not idle threats in Pant-street.