"We must get back, Miss Griselda. Her ladyship will be returned. We must go at once."
"Yes. But Norah—the child?"
"I will take care of her," Brian Bellis said. "See! she is almost stupefied with her grief—she will scarce heed your departure!"
"I cannot leave her—poor little girl! She has no one in the world but me!" Griselda said, in a tone of deep emotion.
While they were thus speaking, the stairs creaked under the weight of Mrs. Betts, who, with one of the actors from the theatre, came to inquire for Lamartine. Mrs. Betts was a coarse, loud-voiced woman, but her nature was kind, and she pitied the child who had done so much for her father with all her heart. She was a woman of decision too, and, with one glance at the bed, she lifted the almost unconscious Norah in her arms, and turning to the pale, haggard man, who had been acting in Lamartine's place, she said:
"You bide here while I take the child to my lodgings. And we must give notice of the death, and club to get him decently buried. Mr. Palmer will give a guinea, and we'll all follow in the same line. Harrison, do you hear?"
"Yes—yes," the man said hurriedly; "but don't leave me long alone here. I—I don't care to have the company of a dead man for long."
"You are an arrant coward, then, for your pains! There, go into the inner chamber, and I'll be back in half an hour. Turn the key in the lock," Mrs. Betts said, as she began to trudge down the dark stairs with Norah in her arms—"turn the key."
But the man sprang to the door:
"Don't—don't lock me in! I'll stay; but don't lock the door!"