'He's quieter,' she said in a whisper, drawing Lucy back into the passage, out of sight of the Tutor's door; 'but he's been orful bad all the morning. As much as two of 'em could do to keep him in bed. It's a sad pity, miss, and such a nice gentleman—there isn't his fellow in the college!'
The bed-maker sniffed; she would have wept, no doubt, but she held a tray, and it would have been inconvenient, so she sniffed instead, and regarded Lucy with a watery eye. She evidently thought Lucy was his sweetheart.
Lucy took a coin from her slender purse and laid it on the tray. She didn't give it to anybody in particular, she only laid it on the tray, and the bed-maker curtsied.
'Will you ask Mr. Gwatkin if I may come in?' she said—'the lady who was with him yesterday.'
She didn't give her name, but the woman knew her quite well—every bed-maker in St. Benedict's knew her. She wasn't the least surprised at the Master's niece taking an interest in one of her gentlemen—the nicest gentleman in the college. She had a tender spot in her withered bosom, under that rusty old shawl, and she was quite flustered at an affaire de cœur on her staircase.
She toddled back, tray and all, and by a preconcerted signal the door was opened, and she said a few words to someone inside, and then Eric Gwatkin came out into the passage and led Lucy in and closed the doors behind her.
He was looking dreadfully tired, she thought, and there were quite deep lines on his face; he seemed to have aged since yesterday. Perhaps it was with want of sleep, but Lucy put it down at once to his guilty conscience. She was feeling old herself, years older than yesterday.
'He has had a very bad night,' Eric Gwatkin said, speaking in a low voice and with his lips twitching, 'such a night as I pray God I may never witness again. You were not praying for us last night. You did not pray for him—for me—when you went away.'
Lucy bowed her head; she remembered she had not prayed for these men. What were they to her that she should pray for them?