“One is outside,” Susan answered.
“Send ’er for more ice!”
“All right, Aunt Deborah,” said Susan resignedly; “you can send ’er.”
This was a victory of considerable importance; it placed Miss Proudleigh in charge of all arrangements affecting the corpse. She adapted her voice to suit her new dignity and now spoke in impressive stage whispers.
But where was Samuel? Susan had lost sight of him; he had quietly slipped out of the house after observing how she was conducting herself; he was glad to see her calm and collected, but a certain delicacy of feeling warned him that he should not remain in the house just now. He was damp and dirty; but there were shops in the town where he could buy some ready-made clothing. He bought a suit and was allowed to put it on in a room behind the shop; if it did not fit him well, at least it was clean and dry.
The day’s work was over in the Cut; everybody he met was talking about the accident. He noticed that they all spoke well of Mackenzie; he wondered whether, if he had died like Mackenzie, his acquaintances would have spoken like that of him.
The rain had ceased entirely, but the sky was sombre still. He remembered that he had eaten nothing from morning, but he had no appetite, did not feel like eating. He lingered about the houses and the shops till long after darkness had fallen. At about eight o’clock, he went back to Susan’s house.
He entered and silently took one of the many chairs that had been borrowed from friendly neighbours for the accommodation of the people who had come and were coming to sit up for a few hours with Susan. Every one was quiet and reverential, and those who talked did so in low and mournful tone.
A solitary light was burning in the room where the body of the dead man lay. Those who wished to do so, stole into the room and peeped at it, then stole back gloomily to their seats. The subdued conversation was about Mackenzie in particular and death in general, and when an elderly woman remarked that Mackenzie was a man who could always be depended upon, and groaned by way of emphasizing her remark, Miss Proudleigh groaned also, as though parting with Mackenzie had been one of the most awful experiences of her life.
Then the young woman who had contradicted Miss Proudleigh in the matter of the ice felt it incumbent upon her to say something.