The next visiting day found him at Janie's bedside. But, instead of his spick-and-span serge suit of "Number Ones" and carefully ironed blue collar, Nosey wore a rusty suit of "civvies" (civilian clothes). Instead of being clean-shaven, an inconsiderable moustache was feeling its way through his upper lip.
"Where's your sailor clothes?" asked Janie weakly.
Nosey looked round to reassure himself that they were not overheard. "I done a bunk!" he whispered.
Janie gazed at him with dismayed eyes. "Not—not deserted?"
Nosey nodded. "Don't you take on, Janie. 'S only so's I can stay near you." He pressed her dry hand. "I got a barrer—whelks an' periwinkles. I've saved a bit o' money. An' now I can stay near you an' come 'ere visiting days."
Janie was too weak to argue or expostulate. It may have been that she was conscious of a certain amount of pride in Nosey's voluntary outlawry for her sake; and she was glad enough to have someone to sit with her on visiting days and tell her about the outside world she was never to see again. She even went back in spirit to the proud days when they walked out together. . . . It brought balm to the cough-racked nights and the weary passage of the days.
Then the streets echoed with the cries of paper-boys. The nurses whispered together excitedly in their leisure moments; the doctors seemed to acquire an added briskness. Once or twice she heard the measured tramp of feet in the streets below, as a regiment was moved from one quarters to another.
England was at war with Germany, they told her. But the intelligence did not interest Janie much at first. That empires should battle for supremacy concerned her very little—till she remembered Nosey's late calling.
It was two days before she saw him again, and he still wore his "civvy" suit. Janie smiled as he approached the bed, and fumbled with the halfpenny daily paper that somebody had given her to look at.
'"Ere," she whispered, "read that."