Martha greeted me in her usual sadly-cordial fashion, and motioned me to a chair near the bed where the little one lay, flushed and asleep.
"She's a bit better," she whispered, "but she's to be kept quiet, an' whatever I do I haven't to miss 'er med'cine every hour. But he says wi' care an' good nursin' she'll pull through."
"Oh, about as usual," she replied indifferently. "I have to cough into my apron when Lucy's asleep, but I should soon be right enough if I'd nought to worrit about. It's yon chap downstairs 'at 'll be t' death of us both."
"Has he no engagement to-night? I thought he was never free on Saturdays."
"It's t' dog. She's poorly again, an' he can't work her. My opinion is 'at t' poor brute's about done, an' I believe Roger knows it an' it's drivin' 'im mad. He drinks t' day through, an' in a bit there'll be nought for us but t' work'us, for I can't keep 'im i' whiskey; an' whativver's goin' to come o' our poor little Lucy I don't know. I've been lookin' at her as she lay there, Miss 'Olden, so sweet an' pretty, like a little angel, an' I a'most asked the Lord to take 'er out of all t' trouble, but I couldn't bide to lose 'er."
The overwrought woman buried her face in her apron and sobbed convulsively--deep-drawn, quiet sobs which told of her soul's agony. A solitary candle was burning upon the dressing-table, and the room looked eerie in the half darkness. Outside the storm was at its height, and in the stillness which neither of us broke I heard it shriek with the shrillness which one associates with spirits in torment.
But it was the savage thrust of the wind that frightened me most, and the heavy and repeated thuds which struck the end of the house like the battering blows of a heavy ram. It is no exaggeration to say that the house rocked, and I began to fear lest it should collapse. I remembered what a shaky, decrepit structure it was, and I turned to Martha to see if she shared my alarm.
She caught the question in my eyes: "I think it's safe enough," she said; "it allus rocks a bit in a 'igh wind. I've got while I take no notice of it."
Poor woman! There was a storm within her breast which dwarfed the tempest outside into insignificance; but I held my breath again and again, and tried in vain to stay the tumultuous beatings of my heart as the mad wind rained blow after blow upon the quivering walls with a persistency and ever growing fury which seemed to make disaster inevitable.