The widow simpered a little, and cast down her eyes. “’Tisn’t what ails me, doctor; ’tis what might ail me.”
“Now, now!” The other was impatient but like all men he was weak in face of the little body’s helplessness. “I’ll be getting home, Mrs. Lister. What might ail you, only heaven in its wisdom knows. Let me get supper and an hour’s smoke until the ailment reaches you; then call me in. I’ve had nothing since a bite of bread and cheese at noon.”
“Ay, but ’tis th’ fever; ye munnot jest about it. Bide a wee while, doctor. A few minutes more will mak’ lile difference to ye.”
“Won’t they?” growled the doctor to himself. “It’s just those odd wasted minutes at the day’s end, little fool, that break a man up, come to reckon the total at a year’s end.”
But he waited with some show of patience, and listened to this woman who had scarcely had an ache, or done a day’s hard work in all her life.
“’Tis this way, ye see, doctor. I’m not like folk who have cheerful company about me all my time. When I sit by my lone self o’ nights, I’ve allus the dread o’ fever for company, and I take it to my lone bed wi’ me. What I want to know is this—suppose I passed a tramping-man i’ the road, as I did awhile since, an’ suppose he looked as if he was sickening, like, an’ suppose—”
The doctor cut her short “Now I catch your drift. You want to know how long ’twill be before the mulberry spots come out,” he said, with a cheerfulness that shocked Widow Lister. “Something between a week and a fortnight; but I shouldn’t be troubled, Widow. Fever doesn’t take the plump little women; it has overmuch respect for ’em.”
“Is that truth, doctor?”
“Ay, as true as that I’m due home for supper. Good night to you. She’ll have another worrit before to-morrow’s ended,” he added, as he jogged down the street. “There’s a use for the widow of course—there’s a use for everything created—but it puzzles a man at times to find out what ’tis.”
At Ghyll the sleepy dusk had settled into slumber. The day had been tired with its own heat, and the night was wearier still. Gaunt had stretched himself on the long settle, after seeing the widow go up to bed. He slept with that death-in-life which comes from sheer exhaustion, and did not hear Mrs. Mathewson creep, like a thief, down her own stair, did not know that the sneck of the door was lifted quietly.