“I will go into the next room with Alice,” he said, “and come to you again. I shall see you often now, I hope. I've been ill or I should have been here fifty times.”
In the next room lay the motionless form of the unmotherly mother. A certain something of human grace had returned to her countenance. Richard did not like looking at her; he felt that, not loving her, he had no right to let his eyes rest on her. But she had been sinned against like his own mother: he must not fail her with what sympathy she might claim!
“Don't think hard things of her,” said Alice, as if she knew what he was thinking. “She had not the strength of some people. I believe myself she could not help it. She had been used to everything she wanted!”
“I pity her heartily,” answered Richard.
She threw her arms round his neck, and clung to him as if she would never more let him go.
“But what am I to do?” she said, releasing him. “If I stay at home to nurse Arthur, we must both die of hunger. If I go away, there is nobody to do anything for him!”
“I wish I could stay with him!” returned Richard. “But I've been so long ill that I have no money, and I don't know when I shall have any. I have just one shilling in my possession. Take it, dear.”
“I can't take your last shilling, Richard!”
“There's no fear of me,” he said; “I shall have everything I want. It makes me ashamed to think of it. You must just creep on for a while as best you can, while I think what to do. Only there's the funeral!”
Alice gave a cry choked by a sob.