Arvie commenced to mutter in his sleep.
“Can’t you get to sleep, Arvie?” she asked. “Is your throat sore? Can I get anything for you?”
“I’d like to sleep,” he muttered, dreamily, “but it won’t seem more’n a moment before—before—”
“Before what, Arvie?” she asked, quickly, fearing that he was becoming delirious.
“Before the alarm goes off!”
He was talking in his sleep.
She rose gently and put the alarm on two hours. “He can rest now,” she whispered to herself.
Presently Arvie sat bolt upright, and said quickly, “Mother! I thought the alarm went off!” Then, without waiting for an answer, he lay down as suddenly and slept.
The rain had cleared away, and a bright, starry dome was over sea and city, over slum and villa alike; but little of it could be seen from the hovel in Jones’s Alley, save a glimpse of the Southern Cross and a few stars round it. It was what ladies call a “lovely night,” as seen from the house of Grinder—“Grinderville”—with its moonlit terraces and gardens sloping gently to the water, and its windows lit up for an Easter ball, and its reception-rooms thronged by its own exclusive set, and one of its charming and accomplished daughters melting a select party to tears by her pathetic recitation about a little crossing sweeper.
There was something wrong with the alarm-clock, or else Mrs Aspinall had made a mistake, for the gong sounded startlingly in the dead of night. She woke with a painful start, and lay still, expecting to hear Arvie get up; but he made no sign. She turned a white, frightened face towards the sofa where he lay—the light from the alley’s solitary lamp on the pavement above shone down through the window, and she saw that he had not moved.