"You'll know presently, my poor man. 'Tis to ease what be bound to creep over you later on."
"Bodily pain's nought. Haven't I suffered all that man can suffer?"
"No, you haven't—not yet. Don't talk about that part. You shan't suffer while I'm here—not if I can help it in reason, and under doctor's orders. But I won't stray beyond them; I was never known to take anything upon myself, like some of they hospital chits, that call themselves nurses, do."
"When is Mrs. Lintern coming?"
Eliza's lips tightened.
"Very soon, without a doubt; though why, I can't ezacally say. Listen to me a little afore she's here. 'Tis my duty to say these things to you, and you're not one that ever stood between man or woman and their duty."
"I'll not see them married now. That's cruel hard after——"
"How can you say that? You may be there in the spirit, if not in the flesh. I suppose you ban't one of they godless ones that say ghosts don't walk? Haven't I beheld 'em with these eyes? Didn't I go down to Mrs. Wonnacott at Shaugh Bridge in the dimpsy of the evening two year ago; and didn't I see a wishtness coming along out of they claypits there? 'Tis well known I seed it; and if it weren't the spirit of Abraham Vosper, as worked there for fifty year and then was run over by his own team of hosses and fractured to death in five places, whose spirit was it? So you may be at your nephew's wedding with the best; and, for my part, I shall know you be there, and feel none the less cheerful for it."
"So much to do—so many to save—and no strength and no time—no time," he said.
The air was dark and hurtling with awful wings for Nathan Baskerville. He heard and saw the storm coming. But others would feel it. He was safe from the actual hurricane, but, by anticipation, dreadfully he endured it now. Death would be no release save from physical disaster. His place was with the living, not with the dead. Cruelly the living must need him presently; the dead had no need of him.