Read it through once

She had been sitting up for him; he had come home exasperated and disappointed. A row soon began; and she thought that he would strike her. But he refrained, for fear, perhaps, of the other lodgers. He took her instead by the arm, dragged her down the broken staircase, and pushed her into the court. She heard the retreating footsteps, and saw a cat slink through a grating, and she wished that she too could escape from the light into the dark.