"But wot's goin' to 'appen?" asked Bindle. "You can't——"
"It won't matter," she moaned. "If I die you'll be glad," she added, as if to leave no doubt in Bindle's mind as to her own opinion on the matter.
"No, I shouldn't. 'Ow could I get on without you?"
"Thinking of yourself as usual," was the retort.
Then, suddenly, she half-lifted herself in bed and, once more raising her head, sniffed the air suspiciously.
"I know that saucepan's burning," she said with conviction; but she sank back again, panting. The burning of a saucepan seemed a thing of ever-lessening importance.
"No, it ain't, Lizzie, reelly it ain't. I filled it right up to the brim. It's that bit o' stoo I spilt on the stove. Stinks like billy-o, don't it?" His sense of guilt made him garrulous. "I'll go an' scrape it orf," he added, and with that he was gone.
"Oh, my Gawd!" he muttered as he opened the kitchen door, and was greeted by a volume of bluish smoke that seemed to catch at his throat.
He made a wild dash for the stove, seized the saucepan and, taking it over to the sink, turned on the tap.
A moment later he dropped the saucepan into the sink and started back, blinded by a volume of steam that issued from its interior.