Up the dim stairs went Harry. He had not been up there since the day he saw the undertakers at Charlie’s coffin, and had his last peep at his darkening face. Up he strode with his hand on the banister, and old Mildred gliding before him like a shadow. She knocked at the door. It was not that of the room which they had occupied, where poor Charles Fairfield had died, but the adjoining one, hurriedly arranged, with such extemporized comforts as the primitive people of the household could manage—homely enough, but not desolate, it looked.
Opening the door, she said—“Here’s Master Harry, ma’am, a-comin’ to see you.”
Harry was already in the room. There were candles lighted on a little table near the bed, although the shutters were still open, and the faint twilight mingling with the light of the candles made a sort of purple halo. Alice was sitting in a great chair by the fire in her dressing-gown, pale, and looking very ill. She did not speak; she extended her hand.
“Came to see you, Ally. Troublesome world; but you must look up a bit, you know. Troubles are but trials, they say, and can’t last for ever; so don’t you be frettin’ yourself out o’ the world, lass, and makin’ more food for worms.”
And with this consolation he shook her hand.
“I would have seen you, Harry, when you called before—it was very kind of you—but I could not. I am better now, thank God. I can’t believe it still, sometimes,” and her eyes filled with tears—
“Well, well, well,” said Harry, “where’s the good o’ cryin’; cryin’ won’t bring him back, you know. There, there. And I want to say a word to you about that woman that’s in jail, you know. ’Tis right you should know everything. He should a told you more about that, don’t you see, else ye might put your foot in it.”
Paler still turned Alice at these words.
“Tell them to go in there,” said he in a lower tone, indicating with his thumb over his shoulder, a sort of recess at the far end of the room, in which stood a table with some work on it.
At a word from Alice old Dulcibella called Lilly Dogger into that distant “alcove,” as Mildred termed it.