THE BLOTTED WORD
HOW long the waiting-time seemed to Marjorie as she sat in the dingy back parlour on that wet afternoon! she felt sometimes as if six o'clock would never come. As it grew darker, the stout landlady came in and lighted the gas; there was only one burner, and it gave but a dim light. Then, later still, she came again to lay the cloth for tea. Such a poor scanty meal, the loaf and a small pat of butter—that was all. There were no flowers on the table, there was nothing to relieve the bareness and austere simplicity of it all. Marjorie's heart ached for him as she looked at it. What an utter contrast to the luxury in which she knew that he had lived before!
Mrs. Hall, the landlady, lingered when she had laid the table, and seemed inclined to talk.
"You'll excuse me, Miss," she said, "but are you Mr. Fortescue's sister?"
"No, not his sister."
"Well," she said, "I'm sorry you're not, because if he has a sister, I should like to have a bit of a talk with her. Somebody ought to come and look after him."
"Is he ill?" asked Marjorie, quickly.
"Well, no, not what you can call ill; but he soon will be, if he goes on as he's going on now."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, he doesn't get enough to eat; at least he has plenty to eat of a kind, but it isn't what a man like him, as is working hard all day, ought to have. Look at his tea now! It don't look as it ought, do it now? And his dinner! He has it out some days, and what he gets then I can't say; not much, I'll be bound; but some days, he comes home for it, and I assure you I'm fair shamed to get him the dinners he orders. One day it will be, 'Mrs. Hall, I'm very fond of herrings; do you think you could get me a couple of nice ones for my dinner?' Another day he'll say, 'Mrs. Hall, you make awfully good soup, I should like that better than anything to-day.'