"Anything wrong?" the cheesemonger's assistant murmured to her in a compassionate tone, as he was cutting the bacon.
Elsie did not take the inquiry amiss. But unfortunately in her blushing answer she lapsed from entire honesty. She ought to have said: "I've been crying partly because I'm a thief, and partly because Mr. Earlforward is very seriously ill." But with shameful suppression of truth she replied in these words:
"Master's that ill!"
And her tears fell anew.
Within an hour the district had heard that the notorious old skinflint Earlforward of Riceyman Steps was dying at last!
Elsie ate no dinner. She tried to eat but could not. Then it was that she devised an expiatory scheme for fasting until the total amount of her thefts should be covered. She had admitted to Mr. Earlforward that she got enough to eat. She could not possibly deny that her employers allowed her more food, or at any rate more regular food, than many of her acquaintances managed to exist on from day to day. With an empty stomach and a tight throat she toiled upon her routine conscientiously, and more than conscientiously, because she felt herself in the presence of final calamity. For her the house and shop had become "the pale court of kingly death"; though she was as ignorant of the mighty phrase as of the Sermon on the Mount, and even less capable of understanding it. The bedroom was sealed against her. Mrs. Earlforward herself went out to purchase special light food. Afterwards she cooked some of the light food and carried it into the bedroom—and carried it out again untouched. Only towards evening did Mrs. Earlforward leave the mysterious and terrible bedroom with an empty basin. Elsie could not comprehend why the doctor had not come, or why, not having come, he had not been fetched. And she dared not ask. No! And she dared not ask how Mr. Earlforward was going on. And Mrs. Earlforward vouchsafed nothing. This withholding of news was Violet's punishment for Elsie. She wore a mask, which announced to Elsie all the time that Elsie was for the present outside the pale of humanity. Elsie had an intense desire to share fully Violet's ordeal, to suffer openly with her; she admitted that the frustration of this desire was no more than her deserts.
At five o'clock, in a clean apron, she was put into the shop. The stove was black out. The shop was full of the presence and intimidation of death. Customers seemed to have avoided it that day, as if they had been magically warned to keep away. Business had been negligible. Elsie hoped much that none would come in the last hour. She had lost the habit of serving in the shop, and was uncertain of her capability to handle the humblest customer without making a fool of herself. Then an old gentleman entered and stood silent, critically surveying her and the shop.
"Yes, sir? What can I——"
The old gentleman saw a fat, fairly sensible face, and young, timid, kind eyes, and was rather attracted and mollified by the eyes; but he did not allow Elsie's gaze to soften more than a very little his just resentment at the spectacle of an aproned charwoman, or at best a general servant, in charge of a bookshop.
"You can't!" he said sharply, moving his ancient head slowly from side to side in a firm negative. "I see Mr. Earlforward."