There was a silence; then the young woman who had been lolling against the table suddenly parted the group, and stood in front of Charity. She was healthier and robuster looking than the others, and her weather-beaten face had a certain sullen beauty.
“Who's the girl? Who brought her here?” she said, fixing her eyes mistrustfully on the young man who had rebuked her for not having a candle ready.
Mr. Miles spoke. “I brought her; she is Mary Hyatt's daughter.”
“What? Her too?” the girl sneered; and the young man turned on her with an oath. “Shut your mouth, damn you, or get out of here,” he said; then he relapsed into his former apathy, and dropped down on the bench, leaning his head against the wall.
Mr. Miles had set the candle on the floor and taken off his heavy coat. He turned to Charity. “Come and help me,” he said.
He knelt down by the mattress, and pressed the lids over the dead woman's eyes. Charity, trembling and sick, knelt beside him, and tried to compose her mother's body. She drew the stocking over the dreadful glistening leg, and pulled the skirt down to the battered upturned boots. As she did so, she looked at her mother's face, thin yet swollen, with lips parted in a frozen gasp above the broken teeth. There was no sign in it of anything human: she lay there like a dead dog in a ditch. Charity's hands grew cold as they touched her.
Mr. Miles drew the woman's arms across her breast and laid his coat over her. Then he covered her face with his handkerchief, and placed the bottle with the candle in it at her head. Having done this he stood up.
“Is there no coffin?” he asked, turning to the group behind him.
There was a moment of bewildered silence; then the fierce girl spoke up. “You'd oughter brought it with you. Where'd we get one here, I'd like ter know?”
Mr. Miles, looking at the others, repeated: “Is it possible you have no coffin ready?”