“Her voice is so hollow! Did you notice it?”
“Hollow from weakness only. As to her being too far gone, she is not so at present; at least, that’s my opinion; but how soon she may become so I can’t say. With good kitchen physic, as I’ve just told them, and ease of mind to help me, I’ll answer for it that I’d have her well in a month; but the girl has neither the one nor the other. She seems to look upon coming death in the light of a relief, rather than otherwise; a relief to her own mental trouble, and a relief to the household, in the shape of saving it what she eats and drinks. In such a condition as this, you must be aware that the mind does not help the body by striving for existence; it makes no effort to struggle back to health; and there’s where Mamie Lee will fail. Circumstances are killing her, not disease.”
“Did you try her lungs?”
“Partially. I’m sure I am right. The girl will probably die, but she need not die of necessity; though I suppose there will be no help for it. Good-day.”
Mr. Darbyshire walked away in the direction of his house, where his dinner was waiting: and Ben Rymer disappeared within doors, and began to pound some rhubarb (or what looked like it) in a mortar. He was pounding away like mad, with all the strength of his strong hands, when who should come in but Lee. Lee had never been much better than a shadow of late years, but you should have seen him now, with his grey hair straggling about his meek, wan face. You should have seen his clothes, too, and the old shoes, out at the toes and sides. Burning people’s letters was of course an unpardonable offence, not to be condoned.
“Mamie said, sir, that you were good enough to tell her I was to call in for some of the cough lozenges that did her so much good. But——”
“Ay,” interrupted Ben, getting down a box of the lozenges. “Don’t let her spare them. They won’t interfere with anything Mr. Darbyshire may send. I hear he has been.”
But that those were not the days when beef-tea was sold in tins and gallipots, Ben Rymer might have added some to the lozenges. As he was handing the box to Lee, something in the man’s wan and worn and gentle face put him in mind of his late father’s, whose heart Mr. Ben had helped to break. A great pity took the chemist.
“You would like to be reinstated in your place, Lee?” he said suddenly.
Lee could not answer at once, for the pain at his throat and the moisture in his eyes that the notion called up. His voice, when he did speak, was as hollow and mild as Mamie’s.