"It will grow again," she said, knowing but too well that before that time came she would be beneath the daisies. "The landlady wanted money, and every thing was sold but that. See, I can pay her."
"All?" I asked.
"No, not all," she said cheerfully; "but perhaps some good fortune will come to us."
That morning I wrote to my father. I told him that I was married to a gentlewoman, noble, good, and pure, that we had a child, and that I was ill and in want. But no answer came. I wrote again, begging him to reply and to assist us. Still no answer. And meanwhile my wife was fading before my eyes, and our landlady clamored for what was due to her. Oh, if I could have sold my blood for money, I would have done it, when I heard her coarse tongue revile my wife! I tottered into the passage.
"Woman!" I cried, "you shall be paid. I will go and get money."
"Where?" asked my wife in a faint voice.
"At my father's," I answered. "Come, we will go and lay our sorrows at his feet."
I took Minnie in my arms, and we started in the direction of my native town. It was not until we had walked four or five miles that we discovered how weak we were. We were penniless and hungry, and Minnie was crying for food. I went into a public-house, and begged for some. I was turned out without ceremony; but a common woman, who was drinking with a tinker, ran after me--God bless her for it!--and put a biscuit into Minnie's hand. We struggled on. A mile nearer. My wife grew white in the face, and her lips were black. And as I looked at her, there came by her side the image of what she was, ruddy, bright-eyed, rosy-lipped. I saw it, I tell you. The impalpable shape of the beautiful girl, radiant with health, walked with light step by the side of the careworn haggard-faced woman. I must have been crazed. She saw in my face the disturbed condition of my mind.
"Courage!" she whispered, taking my arm.
I laughed, and looked around. Fortunately, no one was near us, or I should have robbed him--weak as I was, despair would have given me strength. I have asked myself since, if it would have been a crime, and have not found the answer. Ten miles were compassed when a storm came on--a dreadful pitiless storm, in which the slanting wall of rain before us seemed to shut out hope. We toiled through it, fainting from weariness and hunger; we toiled through it, until I fell prone to the earth. My wife knelt by me in the wet grass, and implored me to make another effort for her sake, for our child's. I tried to rise, but could not. All that I could do was to drag myself to a clump of trees, where I lay exhausted. Every word that passed between us from that time is too deeply engraven on my mind ever to be forgotten.