When Mavis next visited Miss Nippett, she rummaged, at her friend's request, in the cupboard containing the unclaimed "overs" for finery with which the accompanist wished to decorate her exalted state. If Miss Nippett had had her way and had appeared in the street wearing the gaudy, fluffy things she picked out, she would have been put down as a disreputable old lady. But, for all Miss Nippett's resolves, it was written in the book of fate that she was to take but one more journey out of doors, and that in the simplest of raiment. For all her prodigious elation at her public association with Mr Poulter, her health far from improved; her strength declined daily; she wasted away before Mavis' dismayed eyes. She did not suffer, but dozed away the hours with increasingly rare intervals in which she was stark awake. On these latter occasions, for all the latent happiness which had come into her life, she would fret because Mr Poulter rarely called to inquire after her health. Such was her distress at this remissness on the part of the dancing master, that more often than not, when Miss Nippett, after waking from sleep, asked with evident concern if Mr Poulter had been, Mavis would reply:
"Yes. But he didn't like to come upstairs and disturb you."
For five or six occasions Miss Nippett accepted this explanation, but, at last, she became skeptical of Mavis' statements.
"Funny 'e always comes when I'm asleep!" she would say. "S'pose he was too busy to send up 'is name an' chance waking me. Tell those stories to them as swallers them."
But a time came when Miss Nippett was too ill even to fret. For three days she lay in the dim borderland of death, during which the doctor, when he visited her, became more and more grave. A time came when he could do no more; he told Mavis that the accompanist would soon be beyond further need of mortal aid.
The news seemed to strike a chill to Mavis' heart. Owing to their frequent meetings, Miss Nippett had become endeared to her: she could hardly speak for emotion.
"How long will it be?" she asked.
"She'll probably drag through the night. But if I were you, I should go home in the morning."
"And leave her to die alone?"
"You have your own trouble to face. Hasn't she any friends?"