“And heart-starved, too,” he mused, pityingly. “Heart-starved for the want of love, of sympathy, of the sense of soul-union that makes life with a married partner at all bearable.”
“Yus, sir; Mrs. Joss lives yere. Top floor, lef’ ’and side. Yer kin go hup!”
A child had opened the door in response to his knock. Following the directions given, Tom Hammond climbed the dirty stairs. On the top landing were two doors. The one on the right was fast shut; that on the left was ajar a few inches. His approach did not seem to have been heard. Mrs. Joyce, the only occupant of the room, was seated at a bare deal table, sewing briskly.
He stretched out his hand to tap at the door, but some impulse checked him for a moment. He had the opportunity to observe her closely, and he did so.
She sat facing the window; the light shone full upon her. She was dressed in a well-worn but well-fitting black gown. Round her throat—how pure and white the skin was!—she wore a white turnover collar, like a nurse, white cuffs at her wrists completing the nurse idea. Her hair—she had loosened it earlier because of a slight headache—hung in clustering waves on her neck, and was held back behind her ears with a comb on either side. There was a rare softness and refinement in the pale face that drooped over her sewing. Seen as Tom Hammond saw her then, Mrs. Joyce was a really beautiful woman.
He gazed for a few moments at the picture, amazed at the rapidity of her sewing movements.
“The tragedy of Tom Hood’s ‘Song of the Shirt,’” he muttered, as he watched the gleam of the flying needle.
“Oh, men with sisters dear!
Oh, men with mothers and wives!
It is not linen you’re wearing out,