On the contrary, he looked as if he saw nothing there but walls and twilight, and as heavy laden with gloomy thoughts as the troubled ghost she had imagined.
“How is Miss Ally? how is your mistress?” at last he inquired abruptly. “Only middling?”
“Ailing, sir,” answered Mildred, dryly.
“Tell her I’m here, will ye? and has something to tell her and talk over, and will make it as short as I can. Tell her I’d a come earlier, but couldn’t, for the sessions at Wykeford, and dined wi’ a neighbour in the town; and say I mayn’t be able to come for a good while again. Is she up?”
“No, sir, the doctor keeps her still to her bed.”
“Well, old Dulcey Crane’s there; ain’t she?”
“Ay, sir, and Lilly Dogger, too. Little good the slut’s to me these days.”
Harry was trying to read his watch at the darkened window.
“Tell her all that—quick, for time flies,” said Harry.
Harry Fairfield remained in the kitchen while old Mildred did his message, and she speedily returned to say that Alice was sitting up by the fire, and would see him.