At any other time Robert might have resented this, but to-night something had moved his cold and selfish heart, some ray from Dolly's generous spirit had unconsciously reached him at last. He turned away and went quietly out of the room, leaving her sleeping still.
He did not see her again; two days later she left for England.
CHAPTER LIV.
HOLY ST. FRANCIS, WHAT A CHANGE IS HERE.
If when in cheerless wanderings dull and cold,
A sense of human kindliness hath found us,
We seem to have around us
An atmosphere all gold.
—A. Clough.
Twelve o'clock is striking in a bare room full of sunshine. A woman, who is spending her twelfth year in bed, is eating tripe out of a basin; another sitting by the fire is dining off gruel; beds and women alternate all down the ward; two nurses are coming and going, one of them with a black eye. Little garlands of paper, cleverly cut out, decorate the place in honour of some Royal birthday. Two little flags are stuck up against the wall and flying triumphantly from the farther end of the room. A print of the Royal Family, brilliantly coloured, is also pinned up. Mrs. Fane is walking down the middle of the workhouse infirmary with a basket on her arm, when one of the old women puts out a wrinkled hand to call her back.
'Ain't we grand, mum?' says the old woman, looking up. 'It does us all good;' and she nods and goes on with her gruel again.
'How is Betty Hodge to-day?' says Mrs. Fane. The old woman points significantly.