Again she sank into gloomy, miserable reflections, while the darkness increased about her.
The door-bell rang; but she paid no attention to it, thinking that it was only the singers wanting alms. "They may want!" she said to herself grimly. "Other folks want what they can't get, too!"
Once more the bell rang, and yet a third time, and even a fourth; but still Mrs. Cameron remained firm in her determination not to speak to the intruders.
"I'm a hard woman," she said to herself; "aye, and I'll be hard. I'm too old to change now, and nobody cares, nobody cares what I'm like or what I do. If any one cared ever such a little bit, I might be different; but nobody cares, least of all God; He's shut me out of His good books long ago. I shall never get to His Heaven, never! Even if He let me into His Heaven, I shouldn't be happy psalm-singing, and praising Him, and living in His presence. Not I! I don't care at all for Him, and that's truth. And if, as some say, in heaven the angels are always ministering to others and doing deeds of kindness, that work wouldn't suit me. Not it!" She laughed shrilly, as if in derision of the idea; and the darkness deepened around her. "I don't care an atom for other people. Not I!" she went on, and again her weird, unholy laugh rang through the room.
Its echoes reached a young man and woman who stood at the door, hesitating before ringing the bell again, and caused them both to shiver.
"Nobody cares for me, and I care for nobody!" soliloquised Mrs. Cameron. "If any one cared ever so little, it would be different. Oh, dear! What's that?"
An exceedingly loud rapping at the street door made her start up, exclaiming angrily, "Those tramps again!"
She bounced out of the room and across the little hall to the door, opening it somewhat gingerly, and crying out the while in her sharpest tones, "I've nothing for you! Get away! Go!" Then she attempted to shut the door, but a strong hand held, it so firmly that she could not close it, whilst a voice spoke, which she was unable to hear for her own clamour.
"If you don't be off I'll prosecute you!" she cried, menacingly.
"Mother! It is I, Bernard! Let me in."