“I not going to give you five farthings for it,” said the woman, settling herself in his arm-chair with an air of impudent defiance. “Jessica’s home is my home. If you turn me out, out she goes with me.”
Daniel drew his neighbor aside into the kitchen, where he consulted with him in whispers while he kept his eye upon his terrible visitor through the open door.
“What am I to do with her?” he asked. “I wouldn’t have her stop here for anything. Jessica is staying all night with the minister’s children; but she’ll come back to-morrow. Whatever am I to do?”
“Give her some money to go away,” answered Brookes; and after a little heavy-hearted hesitation Daniel resolved to act upon his advice. He returned into his comfortable little parlor, which in some way had never looked even to himself so comfortable and pleasant; and he addressed his visitor with a determined and resolute aspect.
“Now,” he said, “if you won’t go away peaceable I’ll send for a policeman, as sure as I’m the chapel-keeper of St. John’s Chapel. I don’t want to be violent with you, for I’m a Christian man; but I don’t know that a Christian man is bound to give you a lodging in his own house. I should rather think he wasn’t. But if you will go away quiet, here is a shilling to pay for a bed and breakfast elsewhere. That’s all I can do or say. It’s that, or the police.”
The woman deliberated for a few minutes, looking hard into Daniel’s face; but there was no sign of irresolution or relenting upon his grave features; and at last she raised herself slowly and weariedly from the chair, and dragged her slip-shod feet across the floor towards him. She took the shilling sullenly from his hand and without a word passed into the cold and damp of the streets, while Daniel watched her unsteady steps down the court with a feeling of relief.
But when Brookes was gone, and the door was locked for the night, and the agreeable warmth of the glowing fire wrapped round him, he could not keep his thoughts from wondering where the wretched woman had found a shelter. His mind also looked onwards with misgiving to the future which lay immediately before him and Jessica; and again he lamented on his own account that he could not go for counsel to Jessica’s other friend, the minister who had been stricken into silence and unconsciousness even concerning interests still nearer and dearer to his heart.
CHAPTER IV.
JESSICA’S CHOICE.
