Doris, on the other hand, spoke of it in a faltering, tearful voice, adding a little pitifully that it made it harder for her that Ethel was so distant and unsympathetic.
In a sense the circumstances nonplussed Dudley altogether. Some inner voice told him that such a depth of wondrous, unselfish devotion as Ethel showed to her invalid brother could not live in the same heart with hardness and want of sympathy; and yet there was the evidence of the swimming, melting eyes and drooping lips of the younger sister left out in the cold.
Perhaps it was unfortunate that on that very evening of Dudley’s visit Ethel had come home rather earlier than her wont, to find Doris not yet returned from her daily outing, and, in consequence, the fire out and the sick man shivering with cold. He had looked so dreadfully ill that she had hastened first to get some brandy to revive him, only to find Doris had forgotten her promise to get the empty bottle replaced that morning.
In desperation she had hastened to the other little flat on the same floor, hoping its inmate might chance to have a little to lend.
The tenant was a lonely, harsh-featured spinster, who eked out a precarious living by teaching music. Ethel knew her slightly, as a gaunt woman who usually toiled up the stairs with a sort of scornful weariness of herself and everything else.
She knew that because she was not fashionable, nor striking, nor well-dressed, she taught mostly in rather second-rate schools, and often had to take long journeys to her pupils, coming home tired and worn at night to an empty, comfortless little dwelling, to light her own fire and cook her own evening meal.
She knew, too, that she was a gentlewoman, the daughter of a poor clergyman, left penniless, to fight a hard world alone. Had her own home been happier, she would gladly have asked her to join them sometimes; but the weight of Basil’s illness, and her own usual condition of weariness, had left the invitation always unspoken.
“A little brandy,” the music-teacher echoed, with a quick note of concern; “yes, I believe I have a drop. Is it your brother? Let me come and see if I can help?”
“Thank you,” Ethel had replied, trying not to allow her voice to show how much she would have preferred not to accept the proffered help. “I think I can manage quite well.”
But the gaunt spinster followed her across the little landing obstinately. She had seen Doris out half an hour before, and knew that she had not yet returned.