'I was sent here,' she whispered to the woman near her, 'with five shillings for a girl, Clow, said to be in want or sickness.'
A murmur ran round the room. At her words, as if by common consent, the crowd of women drew aside, and through the clearance thus made Alison perceived a bed; and on the bed, its dismal occupant, the newly-dead, as yet untended, the staring eyes unclosed, the pallid hand clenched on the disordered covering. A woman, standing at the bed's head, still held to the parted lips the undimmed mirror.
Alison's vision swam; she sickened, but she saw—saw, upturned among the blankets, the gaunt, grey, sightless face; saw it—and knew it.
'Mysie!' she cried, shrinking back in utmost horror.
'Eh?' ejaculated several astonished voices; 'ye kent poor Mysie?'
But Alison felt the clammy sweat of faintness break out upon her flesh.
'Oh, let me go—let me out!' she gasped. 'I will speak to you upon the stair.'
The women crowded round her, questioning, muttering, explaining she knew not what. She got forth from the room at last, and found herself standing with the one woman upon the outer landing. The poor creature seemed decent enough. By some trick of likeness, she might have been, probably was, the dead woman's sister. She eyed Alison, not resentfully, but curiously.
'Are ye—are ye from him?' she asked.
'From whom?' said Alison, yet trembling, because she knew.