"What can us do? Master be hard, he bides by his word. He ha' been good to we in all else, but this be our ruin."
"No, no." She could not hear him, but she knew what he was saying.
"Back on them streets again. No home to cover we, no food. Us ha' lived easy too long to stand it. 'Twould end in the river. Better to lose the one than our two selves."
"No, no," her lips made the words, but not the sounds.
"'Tis only a matter o' two minutes," he cried fiercely. "Then us be free again." He left the wall, crossed to the bed, bent down, cried into her ear, "It be awful outside. The watter be roaring down under. Us mun live, woman."
Sibley lifted herself with a face of death, and screamed as if it had been the last effort of her life, screamed again and again; but what was that in the wind? Not even a whisper; while Searell read on of the Sons of Kalew, and the miracle of their harps which changed winter into summer and death into life.
Oliver Vorse was staggering downstairs weeping; and outside the wind caught him, dragged him hither and thither like a straw, stuffing his mouth with vapour, and flung him against bellowing walls and into shrieking bushes; and still he protected what he held by instinct, and when he fell upon the steep descent he let his body be bruised and his face torn by that same instinct which makes the timid beast a savage thing.
It took no time.... He was back in the ghastly lamplight, staring at a ghastly face which was the reflection of his own; and the master was still in his musing, and knew nothing.
"Let me die, I'd sooner," Sibley muttered simply; but Oliver could not hear. He was leaning against the wall again; then he went on his knees, and then he turned his back upon the bed. That face, the black hair, a blood-stain visible, they frightened him. He passed into a kind of agony; he was so cold and his body was dry, and there was a lightness in his limbs.
"The watter wur roaring—roaring. There warn't no wind, not there. It wur sheltered down under, and them little white flowers scarce shook."