“Starvation,” answered Miss Kester.
“Why, what on earth do you mean, ma’am?” demanded he. “Starvation!”
“I’ve done what I could for her, so far as a cup of tea might go, and a bit of bread-and-butter once a day, or perhaps a drop of broth,” ran on Miss Kester in the same aggrieved tone. “But it has been hard times with myself lately, and I have my old mother to keep and a bedridden sister. What she has wanted is a supply of nourishing food; and she has had as good as none of any sort since you were here, sir, being too weak to work: and so, rapid consumption set in.”
She whisked upstairs with the candle, for the short winter day was already closing, and we followed her. Mrs. Mapping sat in an old easy-chair, over a handful of fire, her thin cotton shawl folded round her: white, panting, attenuated, starved; and—there could not be much mistake about it—dying.
“Starved? dying? dear, dear!” ejaculated the Squire, backing to the other chair and sitting down in a sort of terror. “What has become of the good people at Benevolence Hall?”
“They!” cried Miss Kester contemptuously. “You don’t suppose those people would spend money to keep a poor woman from dying, do you, sir?”
“Why, it is their business to do it,” said the Squire. “I put Mrs. Mapping’s case into their hands, and they undertook to see to it.”
“To see to it, perhaps, sir, but not to relieve it; I should be surprised if they did that. One of them called here ever so many weeks ago and frightened Mrs. Mapping with his harsh questions; but he gave her nothing.”
“I don’t understand all this,” cried the Squire, rumpling his hair. “Was it a gentleman?”—turning to Mrs. Mapping.
“He was dressed as one,” she said, “but he was loud and dictatorial, almost as though he thought me a criminal instead of a poor sick woman. He asked me all kinds of questions about my past life, where I had lived and what I had done, and wrote down the answers.”