And pulling Elizabeth after her, the landlady burst into a torrent of explanation; how she had done her very best for the poor fellow; how she listened at his door several times during the first day, and heard him cough, that is, she thought she had, but toward night all was so very quiet; and there having come a letter by post, she thought she would take it up to him.
"And I went in, gentlemen, and I declare, upon my oath, I found him lying just as he is now, and as cold as a stone."
"Let me pass; I'm a doctor," said somebody behind; a young man, very shabbily dressed, with a large beard. He pushed aside the landlady and Elizabeth, till he saw the latter's face.
"Give that young woman a chair and a glass of water, will you?" he called out; and his authoritative manner impressed the jurymen, who gathered around him, ready and eager to hear any thing he could say.
He gave his name as John Smith, druggist's assistant; said that the young man who lodged up stairs, whose death he had only just heard of, had been his patient for some months, and was in the last stage of consumption. He had no doubt the death had ensued from perfectly natural causes, as he explained in such technical language as completely to overpower the jury, and satisfy them accordingly. They quitted the parlor, and proceeded to the public house, where, after a brief consultation, they delivered their verdict, as the astute policeman had foretold, "Died by the visitation of God;" took pipes and brandy all round at the bar, and then adjourned to their several homes, gratified at having done their duty to their country.
Meantime, Elizabeth crept up stairs. Nobody hindered or followed her; nobody cared any thing for the solitary dead.
There he lay—poor Tom! almost as she had left him; the counterpane was hardly disturbed, the candle she had placed on the chair had burned down to a bit of wick, which still lay in the socket. Nobody had touched him, or any thing about him, as, in all cases of "Found dead," English law exacts.
Whether he had died soon after she quitted him that night, or whether he had lingered through the long hours of darkness, or of day-light following, alive and conscious perhaps, yet too weak to call any one, even had there been any one he cared to call—when, or how, the spirit had passed away unto Him who gave it, were mysteries that could never be known.
But it was all over now; he lay at rest with the death smile on his face. Elizabeth, as she stood and looked at him, could not, dared not weep.
"My poor Tom, my own dear Tom," was all she thought, and knew that he was all her own now; that she had loved him through every thing, and loved him to the end.