His Darling Sin by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

"And the Abbé uncrossed his legs, / Took snuff, a reflective pinch. / Broke silence: 'The question begs / Much pondering ere I pronounce. Shall I flinch? / The love which to one and one only has reference / Seems terribly like what perhaps gains God's preference. "

Faunce ate his modest luncheon at the immemorial Cock; and, after a quarter of an hour's rest and meditation, assisted by tobacco, took a hansom and drove to Selburne Street, which the cabman discovered, after some research, in a labyrinth of shabby streets between the King's Road and the Thames, to the west of the red-brick mansions of Cheyne Walk, and all the pleasantness of fashionable Chelsea -- a wilderness of eight-roomed houses, slate roofs, narrow areas, steep steps, dirty windows, and gutters overcharged with small children: one of those depressing neighbourhoods which fill the stranger's mind with a despairing pity, but where, nevertheless, there exist worthy, hard-working people who contrive somehow to be happy, and even comfortable -- people who have their Christmas puddings and their household affections, like the Cratchets, and who do not desire to curse God and die.