She held out her two hands, which were worn to skin and bone, ‘Oh, Oliver, my Oliver! oh, I knew he would come. Oh, didn’t I say he would come?’ she cried. Wentworth could not but take the bony fingers into his own. He saw that it was expected he should kiss her; but that was impossible. He sat down in the chair which had been placed for him by the bedside.
‘I am very sorry to see you so ill, my poor girl,’ he said.
‘Ill’s not the word, Mr. Wentworth; she’s dying. She hasn’t above an hour or two in this world,’ said the mother, or the woman who took a mother’s place.
He gave her a look of horrified reproach, with the usual human sense that it is cruel to announce this fact too clearly. ‘I hope it is not quite so bad as that.’
‘Yes, Oliver; oh, dear Oliver, yes, yes,’ said the sick woman. ‘This is--my last night--on earth.’ She spoke with difficulty, pausing and panting between the words, her thin lips distended with a smile, the smile (he could not help remarking) that had always been a little artificial, poor girl! at her best. But even at that awful moment she was endeavouring to charm him still (he felt with horror) by the means which she supposed to have charmed him in the past.
‘Tell him, mother, tell him. I haven’t got--the strength.’ She put out her hands for his hand, which he could not refuse, though her touch made him shiver, and lay looking at him, smiling, with that awful attempt at fascination. He covered his eyes with his disengaged hand, half because of the horror in his soul, half that he might not see her face.
‘Mr. Wentworth,’ said the elder woman, ‘my poor child, sir, she’s got one wish--’ the bony hands closed upon his with a feeble, yet anxious pressure as this was said.
‘Yes; what is it? If it is anything I can do for her, tell me. I will do anything that can procure her a moment’s pleasure,’ he said.
Fatal words to say! but he meant them fully--out of pity first, and also out of a burning desire, at any cost, to get away. Anything for that! He would have willingly given the half of what he possessed only to get away from this place--to return to the life he had left, to hear this woman’s name no more.
Once more the wasted hands pressed his, and she gave a little cry. ‘I knowed it--always--mother. I told you.’