"It couldn't be worse than this," said the woman. "I think perhaps I've been foolish to stay here so long."
"I'll see the Matron for you on Thursday," said Anne. "Good-bye."
"Good-bye, and thank you," returned the sick woman, turning wearily away from her fellow-lodger and settling down to the silence and endurance in which she habitually lived.
"Good afternoon, Mrs Wright," said Anne to the other woman as she opened the door. The woman stared in a way meant to put Anne out of countenance, making no reply, while Anne, going outside, shut the door gently behind her.
CHAPTER XIII
For three months Anne had prayed constantly for Jane. Living alone in an orderly and quiet house with one window open towards her Invisible Friend, she had spoken with Him of her desire for Jane's recovery, until it appeared to her that He too must yearn as she did for this definite thing. Elizabeth Richardson had been removed to the Infirmary and was at peace, so that Anne's thoughts were of little else than Jane and her re-instatement in the country. It was not the chagrin of the failure of her visit to Burton's house which troubled her, but her helplessness. If she went again she could do no more than plead as she had done before. But it might be that the girl had by this time felt her need of outside friends. It was fully three months ago. As Anne was returning from the nearest village one afternoon in the solemn winter sunshine, she determined suddenly to pay a second visit to Jane. And she would try to be less hard on Burton, which would perhaps draw Jane to her. It might be that she needed a friend by now. Half a mile from her own cottage she came to a three-cornered patch of the way where several roads met. By one side was a pond with two posts painted white as a mark for drivers at night-time. The sloping edge of the pond was trodden into mud by the feet of horses stopping to drink, and as Anne, crossing the road to avoid the mud, arrived opposite one of the posts, she saw a bill posted upon it announcing a sale.
"I must see what it is," she said. "Perhaps it's something for Mary."
She read the heading. "Sale of Bankrupt Stock."
"It seems to be nothing but horses," she said as she read the list. Two men carrying forks on their shoulders came at that moment from the Ashley Road and joined her, looking over her shoulder at the bill.
"I heard about it this morning," said one. "I thought he couldn't last long at that rate. It was always spending and making a show."
"There was someone else in it," said the other. "They say Burton's done a moonlight flitting and gone to America."