Of the woman lying upon it there was little left but skin and bone. She seemed all eyes and voice—eyes which stared and shone in the gloom, and voice which broke upon the silence with an awesome power.
"She's been speaking awmost i' a whisper till to-day," explained Mrs. Briarley, under her breath, "an' aw at onct th' change set in, an' it coom back as loud as ivver."
She lifted her hands, beckoning with crooked fingers.
"Coom tha here," she commanded.
Rachel Ffrench went to her slowly. She had no color left, and all her hauteur could not steady her voice.
"What do you want?" she asked, standing close beside the bed.
For a few seconds there was silence, in which the large eyes wandered from the border of her rich dress to the crown of her hair. Then Granny Dixon spoke out:
"Wheer'st flower?" she cried. "Tha'st getten it on thee again. I con smell it."
It was true that she wore it at her throat as she had done before. A panic of disgust took possession of her as she recollected it. It was as if they two were somehow bound together by it. She caught at it with tremulous fingers, and would have flung it away, but it fell from her uncertain clasp upon the bed, and she would not have touched it for worlds.
"Gi' it to me!" commanded Granny Dixon.