The man strolled out to the living-room, whispering to me as he passed: “There’s a change in him. I don’t think he’ll last through the night.”
“Come and sit ’ere, sonny,” Lovey commanded as soon as we were alone. “I’ve got somethin’ special-like to tell ye. Did ye know,” he went on, when I was seated beside the bed, “as I’d seen Lizzy—and she ’adn’t her neck broke at all. She was lovely.”
“Where?” I asked, to humor him.
“Right ’ere—right beside that there chair that you’re a-sittin’ in.”
“When?”
“Oh, on and off—pretty near all the time now.”
“You mean that she comes and goes?”
“No; not just comin’ and goin’. She’s—she’s kind o’ ’ere all the time, only sometimes I ain’t lookin’.” His face became alight. “There she is now—and a great long street be’ind ’er. No, it ain’t a street; it’s just all lovely-like, and Lizzy with ’er neck as straight as a walkin’-stick—and not a drinkin’-woman no more she don’t look—it’s kind o’ beautiful like, Slim, only—only I can’t make ye understand.”
Sighing fretfully over his inability to explain, he lapsed into that state of which I never was sure whether it was sleep or unconsciousness.