The nurse stood at the door of the sitting-room while Stott ate, and presently Mrs. Reade came grunting and panting up the brick path.
“I’m going out, now,” said Stott resolutely, and he rose to his feet, though his meal was barely finished.
“You’ll be back before Mrs. Reade goes?” asked the nurse, and passed a hand over her tired eyes. “She’ll be here till ten o’clock. I’m going to lie down.”
“I’ll be back by ten,” Stott assured her as he went out.
He did come back at ten o’clock, but he was stupidly drunk.
IV
The Stotts’ cottage was no place to live in during the next few days, but the nurse made one stipulation; Mr. Stott must come home to sleep. He slept on an improvised bed in the sitting-room, and during the night the nurse came down many times and listened to the sound of his snores. She would put her ear against the door, and rest her nerves with the thought of human companionship. Sometimes she opened the door quietly and watched him as he slept. Except at night, when he was rarely quite sober, Stott only visited his cottage once a day, at lunch time; from seven in the morning till ten at night he remained in Ailesworth save for this one call of inquiry.
It was such a still house. Ellen Mary only spoke when speech was absolutely required, and then her words were the fewest possible, and were spoken in a whisper. The child made no sound of any kind. Even Mrs. Reade tried to subdue her stertorous breathing, to move with less ponderous quakings. The neighbours told her she looked thinner.
Little wonder that during the long night vigil the nurse, moving silently between the two upstairs rooms, should pause on the landing and lean over the handrail; little wonder that she should give a long sigh of relief when she heard the music of Stott’s snore ascend from the sitting-room.