"Oh dear!" says Rosalind; for this boy had that terrible power of vivid description which flinches at no realism--_seems_ to enjoy the horror of it; does not really. Probably it was only his intense anxiety to communicate _all_, struggling with his sense of his lack of language--a privilege enjoyed by guv'nors. But Rosalind feels the earnestness of his brief epic. He winds it up:

"But the guv'nor, he'd done h.o.a.rckin'. Nor he never spoke. The gentleman I told you, he says leave him lyin' a minute, he says, and he runs. Then back he comes with the apoarthecary--him with the red light--and they rips the guv'nor's sleeves up, spilin' his coat. And they prokes into his arm with a packin'-needle. Much use it done! And then they says, it warn't the fog, and I called 'em a liar. 'Cos it's a clearin' off, they says. It warn't, not much. I see the perambulance come, and they shoved him in, and I hooked it off, and heard 'em saying where's that young shaver, they says; he'll be wanted for his testament. So I hooked it off."

"And where did you go?"

"To a wisit on a friend, I did. Me and Slimy--him I mentioned afore.

And he says, he says, to come on here--on'y later. So then I come on here."

Rosalind finds herself, in the face of what she feels must mean Old Jack's sudden death, thinking how sorry she is she can command no pair of trousers of a reasonable size to replace this boy's drenched ones--a pair that would need no string. A crude brew of hot toddy, and most of the cake that had appealed to Major Roper in vain, and never gone back to the cellaret, were the only consolations possible. They seemed welcome, but under protest.

"Shan't I carry of 'em outside, missis?"

"On the stairs, then." This a.s.sent is really because both women believe he will be comfortabler there than in the room. "Where are you going to sleep?" Rosalind asks, as he takes the cake and tumbler away to the stairs. She puts a gas-jet on half-c.o.c.k.

"Twopenny doss in Spur Street, off of 'Orseferry Road, Westminster."

This identification is to help Rosalind, as she may not be able to spot this particular doss-house among all she knows.

"Do you always sleep there?"

"No, missis! Weather permitting, in our mooze--on the 'eap. The 'orse-keeper gives a sack in return for a bit of cleanin', early, before comin' away."

"What are you?" says Rosalind. She is thinking aloud more than asking a question. But the boy answers:

"I'm a wife, I am. Never learned no tride, ye see!... Oh yes; I've been to school--board-school scollard. But they don't learn you no tride.

You pa.r.s.es your standards and chucks 'em." This incredible boy, who deliberately called himself a waif (that was his meaning), was it possible that he had pa.s.sed through a board-school? Well, perhaps he was the highest type of compet.i.tive examinee, who can learn everything and forget everything.

"But you have a father?"

"I could show him you. But he don't hold with teachin' his sons trides, by reason of their gettin' some of his wiges. He's in the sanitary engineering himself, but he don't do no work." Rosalind looks puzzled.

"That's his tride--sanitary engineering, lavatries, plumbin', and fittin'. Been out of work better than three years. He can jint you off puppies' tails, though, at a shillin'. But he don't only get a light job now and again, 'cos the tride ain't wot it was. They've been shearin' of 'em off of late years. Thank you, missis." The refreshments have vanished as by magic, and Rosalind gives the boy the rest of the cake and a coin, and he goes away presumably to the doss-house he smells so strong of, having been warmed, that a flavour of the heap in the mews would have been welcome in exchange. So Rosalind thinks as she opens the window a moment and looks out. She can quite see the houses opposite. The fog has cleared till the morning.

Perhaps it is the relenting of the atmospheric conditions, or perhaps it is the oxygen that the patient has been inhaling off and on, that has slightly revived him. Or perhaps it is the champagne that comes up through a tap in the cork, and reminds Rosalind's ill-slept brain of something heard very lately--what on earth exactly was it? Oh, she knows! Of course, the thing in the street the sanitary engineer's son drew the pails of water at for the house with the balcony. It is pleasanter to know; might have fidgeted her if she had not found out.

But she is badly in want of sleep, that's the truth!

"I thought Major Roper was gone, Rosey." He can talk through his heavy breathing. It must be the purer air.

"So he is, dear. He went two hours ago." She sits by him, taking his hand as before. The nurse is, by arrangement, to take her spell of sleep now.

"I suppose it's my head. I thought he was here just now--just this minute."

"No, dear; you've mixed him up with Gerry, when he came in to say good-night. Major Roper went away first. It wasn't seven o'clock." But there is something excited and puzzled in the patient's voice as he answers--something that makes her feel creepy.

"Are you _sure_? I mean, when he came back into the room with his coat on."

"You are dreaming, dear! He never came back. He went straight away."

"Dreaming! Not a bit of it. You weren't here." He is so positive that Rosalind thinks best to humour him.

"I suppose I was speaking to Mrs. Kindred. What did he come back to say, dear?"

"Oh, nothing! At least, I had told him not to chatter to Sallykin about the old story, and he came back, I suppose, to say he wouldn't." He seemed to think the incident, as an incident, closed; but presently goes on talking about things that arise from it.

"Old Jack's the only one of them all that knew anything about it--that Sallykin is likely to come across. Pellew knew, of course; but he's not an old chatterbox like Roper."

Ought not Rosalind to tell the news that has just reached her? She asks herself the question, and answers it: "Not till he rallies, certainly.

If he does not rally, why then----!" Why then he either will know or won't want to.

She has far less desire to tell him this than she has to talk of the ident.i.ty of her husband. She would almost be glad, as he is to die--her old friend--that she should have some certainty beforehand of the exact time of his death, so that she might, only for an hour a companion in her secrecy. If only he and she might have borne the burden of it together! She reproached herself, now that it was too late, with her mistrust of his powers of retaining a secret. See how keenly alive he was to the need of keeping Sally's parentage in the dark! And _that_ was what the whole thing turned on. Gerry's continued ignorance might be desirable, but was a mere flea-bite by comparison.

In her strained, sleepless, overwrought state the wish that "the Major"

should know of her happiness while they could still speak of it together grew from a pa.s.sing thought of how nice it might have been, that could not be, to a dumb dominant longing that it should be. Still, after all, the only fear was that he should talk to Gerry; and how easy to keep Gerry out of the room! And suppose he did talk! Would Gerry believe him? There was risky ground there, though.

She was not sorry when no more speech came through the heavy breathing of the invalid. He had talked a good deal, and a semi-stupor followed, relieving her from the strong temptation she had felt to lead him back to their past memories, and feel for some means of putting him in possession of the truth. As the tension of her mind grew less, she became aware this would have been no easy thing to do. Then, as she sat holding the old hand, and wondering that anything so frail could still keep in bond a spirit weary of its prison, drowsiness crept over her once more, all the sooner for the monotonous rhythm of the heavy breath. Consciousness gave place to a state of mysterious discomfort, complicated with intersecting strings and a grave sense of responsibility, and then to oblivion. After a few thousand years, probably minutes on the clock, a jerk woke her.

"Oh dear! I was asleep."

"You might give me another nip of the champagne, Rosey dear. And then you must go and lie down. I shall be all right. Is it late?"

"Not very. About twelve. I'll look at my watch." She does so, and it is past one. Then the invalid, being raised up towards his champagne, has a sudden attack of coughing, which brings in the nurse as a reserve. Presently he is reinstated in semi-comfort, half a tone weaker, but with something to say. And so little voice to say it with!

Rosalind puts her ear close, and repeats what she catches.

"Why did Major Roper come back? He didn't, dear. He went away about seven, and has not been here since."

"He was in the room just this minute." The voice is barely audible, the conviction of the speaker absolute. He is wandering. The nurse's mind decides, in an innermost recess, that it won't be very long now.

Rosalind looked out through a spot she had rubbed clean on the frozen window-pane, and saw that it was bright starlight. The fog had gone.

That boy--he was asleep at the twopenny doss, and the trousers were drying. What a good thing that he should be totally insensitive to atmosphere, as no doubt he was.

The hardest hours for the watcher by a sick-bed are those that cannot be convinced that they belong to the previous day. One o'clock may be coaxed or bribed easily enough into winking at a pretence that it is only a corollary of twelve; two o'clock protests against it audibly, and every quarter-chime endorses its claim to be to-morrow; three o'clock makes short work of an imposture only a depraved effrontery can endeavour to foist upon it. Rosalind was aware of her unfitness to sit up all night--all this next night--but nursed the pretext that it had not come, and that it was still to-day, until a sense of the morning chill, and something in the way the sound of each belated cab confessed to its own scarcity, convinced her of the uselessness of further effort. Then she surrendered the point, short of the stroke of three, and exchanged posts with the nurse, who promised to call her at once should it seem necessary to do so. Sleep came with a rush, and dreamless oblivion. Then, immediately, the hand of the nurse on her shoulder, and her voice, a sudden shock in the absolute stillness:

"I thought it better to wake you, Mrs. Nightingale. I am _so_ sorry...."

"Oh dear! how long have I slept?" Rosalind's mind leaped through a second of unconsciousness of where she is and what it's all about to a state of intense wakefulness. "What o'clock is it?"

"It's half-past six. I should have left you to have your sleep out, only he wanted you.... Yes, he woke up and asked for you, and then asked again. He's hardly coughed."

"I'll come." Rosalind tried for alacrity, but found she was quite stiff. The fire was only a remnant of red glow that collapsed feebly as the nurse touched it with the poker. It was a case for a couple of little gluey wheels, and a good contribution to the day's fog, already in course of formation, with every grate in London panting to take shares. Rosalind did not wait to see the black column of smoke start for its chimney-pot, but went straight to the patient's bedside.

"Is that Rosey? I can't see very well. Come and sit beside me. I want you." He was speaking more easily than before, so his hearer thought.

Could it be a change for the better? She put her finger on the pulse, but it was hard to find. The fever had left him for the time being, but its work was done. It was wonderful, though, that he should have so much life in him for speech.

"What is it, Major dear?... Let's get the pillow right.... There, that's better! Yes, dear; what is it?"

"I've got my marching orders, Rosey. I shall be all right. Shan't be sorry ... when it's over.... Rosey girl, I want you to do something for me.... Is my watch there, with the keys?"

"Yes, dear; the two little keys."