"Your wife?"
"My wife? I've got none? She spent every thing till I fell ill, and then she met a fellow with lots of money. Curse her!"
The fury with which he spoke shook him all over, and sent him into another violent fit of coughing, out of which he revived by degrees, but in a state of such complete exhaustion that Elizabeth hazarded no more questions. He must evidently be dealt with exactly like a child.
She made up her mind in her own silent way, as indeed she had done ever since she came into the room.
"Lie down, Tom, and keep yourself quiet for a little. I'll be back as soon as I can—back with something to do you good. You won't object."
"No, no; you can do any thing you like with me. You always could."
Elizabeth groped her way down stairs strangely calm and self-possessed. There was need. Tom, dying, had come to her as his sole support and consolation—throwing himself helplessly upon her, never doubting either her will or her power to help him. Neither must fail. The inexplicable woman's strength, sometimes found in the very gentlest, quietest, and apparently the weakest character, nerved her now.
She went up and down, street after street, looking for lodgings, till the evening darkened, and the Abbey towers rose grimly against the summer sky. Then she crossed over Westminster Bridge, and in a little street on the Surrey side she found what she wanted—a decent room, half sitting, half bedroom, with what looked like a decent landlady. There was no time to make many inquiries; any thing was better than to leave Tom an other night where he was.
She paid a week's rent in advance; bought firing and provisions; every thing she could think of to make him comfortable; and then she went to fetch him in a cab.
The sick man offered no resistance; indeed, he hardly seemed to know what she was doing with him. She discovered the cause of this half insensibility when, in making a bundle of his few clothes, she found a package labeled "opium."