“Come farther up; they’re hotter higher up,” a woman said shrilly.
Then a miserable little group came clambering over the great cones of cooling slag, and a child cried out joyously, “This here one’s hot, mammy!”
The woman, catching sight of Robert Blair’s sister, though not recognizing her, said harshly:—
“You bet hangman Blair has a fire in his house to-day. Well, thank God, he ain’t made no cut in slag, yet; we can get a bit of warmth here. I wish he may freeze in his bed!”
Lydia Eaton answered, stammering and incoherent, something about the cold weather; and then, she was so overstrained and nervous, she burst out crying. “Oh, won’t you please let me give you this?” she said, and put some money into the woman’s hand.
She went away, stumbling, because her eyes were blurred with tears, and saying to herself,—
“What shall I do?”
She almost ran into Mr. West on Baker Street, and stopped abruptly, putting her hands on his arm, and, in her agitation, shaking it violently, her whole face convulsed and terrified.
“Tell me—you know; you are good: whose fault is it? Robert’s—for all—this?”
He understood instantly, and was very gentle with her.