“It was caught the day he went into the City to tell Mr. Brown he must give up his situation,” she answered. “There’s an old saying, of being penny wise and pound foolish, and that’s what poor James was that day. It was a fine morning when he started; but rain set in, and when he left Mr. Brown it was pouring, and the streets were wet. He ought to have taken a cab, but did not, and waited for an omnibus. The first that passed was full; by the time another came he had got wet and his feet were soaking. That brought on a return of the illness he had had in January.”
“I hope he will get well.”
“It lies with God,” she answered.
They made me promise to go again. “Soon, Johnny, soon,” said Mr. Marks with an eagerness that was suggestive. “Come in the afternoon and have some tea with me.”
I had meant to obey literally and go in a day or two; but one thing or other kept intervening, and a week or ten days passed. One Wednesday Miss Deveen was engaged to a dinner-party, and I took the opportunity to go to Pimlico. It was a stormy afternoon, blowing great guns one minute, pouring cats and dogs the next. Mrs. Marks was alone in the parlour, the tea-things on the table before her.
“We thought you had forgotten us,” she said in a half-whisper, shaking hands. “But this is the best time you could have come; for a kind neighbour has invited all the children in for the evening, and we shall be quiet. James is worse.”
“Worse!”
“At least, weaker. He cannot sit up long now without great fatigue. He lay down on the bed an hour ago and has dropped asleep,” she added, indicating the next room. “I am waiting for him to awake before I make the tea.”
He awoke then: the cough betrayed it. She went into the room, and presently he came back with her. No doubt he was worse! my heart sank at seeing him. If he had looked like a skeleton before, he was like a skeleton’s ghost now.
“Ah, Johnny! I knew you would come.”