Mrs. Grail left the room without speaking. She returned in a few minutes, and, leaving the door a little open, said in her very low, tremulous voice, that Lydia was waiting in the passage. Ackroyd shook hands with the two, and went out.

Lydia looked eagerly into his face.

'Is he very bad, Mr. Ackroyd?' she whispered.

'I hope he's come round by this time,' was his reply. 'My sister's attending to him, and we've got things for him from the doctor.'

They passed into the street, and walked quickly side by side.

'It was very good of you to take him in,' Lydia said. 'It would have been very hard to ask Mrs. Bower for help.'

'Yes, yes; We don't want them.'

Lydia and Mrs. Poole had never met. They looked with interest at each other. Ackroyd went down into the kitchen, leaving them together in the room with the old man.

The night went on. Ackroyd and his brother-in-law smoked innumerable pipes by the kitchen fire. Jim often nodded, but Luke was far from sleep; the sad still half-hour spent with the Grails had troubled his imagination, and thoughts of Thyrza had been revived in him. Yes, he had loved Thyrza; all folly put aside, he knew that the memory of the sweet-voiced, golden-haired girl would for ever remain with him. And all this night he did not once think of Totty Nancarrow.

Fortunately, as it was Saturday, they had no need to think of work next morning. Jim would not go to bed; he kept up the most determined struggle with sleep, subduer of mortals. His wife came down now and then, and was angry with him for his useless obstinacy, so plain it was that he could scarcely hold up his great thick head. There was nothing good to report of the patient; he had not recovered consciousness.

At five o'clock, when, in spite of fire and lamp, the little kitchen looked haggard, Mrs. Poole entered hurriedly.

'Do you think the doctor 'ud come, Luke, if you went for him? He can't get breath. Lydia does want the doctor fetching.'

Luke was off in an instant.

Lydia stood by the bed, pale, anguished. Happily, that struggle, which seemed of death, did not last very long. The worn old face, almost venerable at length in spite of the grotesqueness of its features, fell into calm. Then, almost as in a natural waking from sleep, the eyes opened and were aware of things.

'Are you feeling better, grandad dear?' Lydia asked.

He looked surprised, tried to speak; but there was no voice.

Luke was long.

The two women stood side by side. The old man kept endeavouring to utter words; his powerlessness was dreadful to him, his face showed.

But at length he spoke.

'Lyddy!--Thyrza!'

'She shall come and see you, grandad. She shall come very soon.'

Again a vain endeavour to speak. His face altered; it expressed Lydia knew not what. A supreme effort, and he again spoke.

'Mary Bower gave me all I wanted, Be friends with her, Lyddy!'

No more than that. Gradually, an end of struggle, an end of pain, an end of all things.

The doctor came. He said that no doubt there would have to be an inquest.

They left Lydia alone in the room, When it was midway through the winter morning, Mrs. Poole came down and told Luke that the girl wished to speak to him; he would find her in the parlour.

She had swollen eyes, but spoke with perfect calmness.

'Mr. Ackroyd, what did he mean? The last thing he said was, 'Mary Bower gave me all I wanted.' I don't know what he meant. Your sister says you'll tell me.'

Luke could only guess at the sense of the words, but he told her all he knew.

'I only heard it on Friday night, from Totty,' he said. 'I was thinking of every way I could to help him.'

'Oh, but to think that you never told me!' she exclaimed. 'You'd no right to keep such a thing from me. It wasn't kindness; it wasn't kindness at all, See what's come of it!

'I do wish I had told you.'

Early in the afternoon Lydia went home. But before leaving, she searched in the poor old garments to see if; indeed, he had been penniless. The discovery of the money at first astonished her, but immediately after she found the pawn ticket. It was proof enough.

She was sitting in her room, at nightfall, when someone knocked. She went to the door. Mary Bower was there.

'May I come in, Lydia?' Mary asked, with eyes downcast.

Lydia had started. She drew back, leaving the door open. Mary entered, closed the door behind her, and stood in agitation.

'I know you hate me more than ever, Lydia,' she began, tremulously; 'but I did what I could for him. I want to tell you that I did what I could for him, and I'd never have let mother give him notice. I told her last night that, if she did, I'd leave home. I put food in his room, and nobody knew about it. Perhaps you don't believe me; if he could speak, he'd tell you someone did, and it was me.'

Lydia covered her face and wept. Mary, drawing nearer, went on with broken voice:

'I've been very much to blame, Lydia. I've been hard and unforgiving.

But that night when you told me you hated me, I wanted to say how sorry I was for you. I never spoke a word against Thyrza, not a word. And now I couldn't help coming to you. I want to be friends again, Lyddy dear.

Don't send me away! I've been to blame in everything; I've been bad-hearted. You might well not believe my religion when you saw me acting as I did.'

She ceased, drawn to Lydia's heart and kissed with more than the old affection.

'I know what you did for him, Mary. He told me--the last words he spoke. He asked me to be friends with you again. I do want a friend, Mary; I'm very lonely. I'll love you as long as I live for being kind to him.'

They lit no light, but sat together by the glow of the fire, speaking in very low voices, often with long intervals of silence. Two poor girls, the one as ignorant as the other, but speaking with awed spirit of death and the hope that is thereafter.

CHAPTER XXXII

TOTTY'S LUCK

'The Little Shop with the Large Heart' had suffered a grave loss: Miss Totty Nancarrow had withdrawn her custom from it.

Totty had patronised Mrs. Bower very steadily for some five years. It was true that the large-hearted shop put a rather large price on certain things, in comparison with what they _could_ be bought for in Lambeth. If you wanted a pot of marmalade, for instance, Mrs. Bower sold it for sixpence, whereas it was notoriously purchasable for fivepence-halfpenny at grocers in Lambeth Walk. If you went for a quarter of a pound of butter, you had no choice of quality, and paid fourpence three farthings, whilst in Lambeth Walk you obtained a better article for the even fourpence. Totty, however, had a principle that one ought to deal rather with acquaintances than with strangers, and another principle that it was better to pay a halfpenny more for an article to be had by crossing the street than a halfpenny less and go a whole street's length for it. True girl of the people was Totty, herein as in other respects. It was a simple fact that Mrs. Bower's business depended on the indolence and indifference to small economies of those women who lived in her immediate neighbourhood. It is the same kind of thing that leads working people to pay for having meat badly cooked at the baker's instead of cooking it cheaply and well themselves; that leads them to buy expensive, ready-prepared suppers at the pork butcher's and the fried-fish shop, instead of tossing up an equally good and very cheap supper for themselves.

Considering her income, Totty had spent a great deal with Mrs. Bower, as you remember that lady once remarking. Totty had a mind to live on luxuries; if she had not money enough for both bread and marmalade, she chose to have the marmalade alone; if she could not buy meat and pickles at the same time, she would have pickles and go without meat.

Marmalade and pickles she deemed the indispensables of life; if you could not get those--well, it was no uncommon thing for poor creatures to be driven to the workhouse. And the strange thing was that she looked so well on such diet. Since the age of fifteen, when, in truth, she had been a little peaked and terribly tenuous at the waist, her personal appearance had steadily improved. Her spirits had, by degrees, reached their present point of perpetual effervescence. But Totty could be grave, and, if occasion were, sad.