"Ah, poor lass! I'm sadly afraid she's not long for this world," remarked the old fellow with a melancholy shake of the head, in allusion to Dick's widow.
"Is she so ill as that?" queried Nell, thoroughly shocked.
"Aye, that is she. Long afore next year at this time the daisies'll be growin' over her grave. She caught a chill last Christmas, and it settled on her chest, which was always delicate, and now--why now, as I say, all the doctors in the world couldn't set her on her feet again."
"I cannot tell you how grieved I am to hear this. And the boy--her child--what of him?"
"Oh, he's as right as a trivet. A famous young shaver, and no mistake. There's nothing the matter with him."
Miss Baynard drove direct from Holborn to the address given her, which was Lawn Cottage, Chelsea. There Marjory Cortelyon rented a couple of rooms, a middle-aged widow, Mrs. Mardin by name, being at once her landlady and her nurse.
Nell, having sent in her name, was presently admitted to the invalid's little sitting-room, with its pleasant outlook across a wide sweep of sunny meadows, long ago covered with bricks and mortar.
The ex-actress lay on a couch near the window, a frail figure, wasted by illness to little more than skin and bone. That she had been very pretty once on a time was still plainly evident, and in her large, lustrous eyes, sunken though they were, Nell read something which went direct to her heart. There had never been anything meretricious or tawdry about her, otherwise Dick Cortelyon would not have made her his wife. She had been good and pure, and, in her way, a lady.
Nell, after pausing on the threshold for a couple of seconds while she took in the scene, went quickly forward and, dropping on one knee by the couch, bent over and kissed the dying woman. Tears dimmed her eyes, and a few moments passed before a word would come. Indeed, Marjory was the first to speak. At the touch of Nell's lips her ivory cheeks flushed, and a lovely smile played for a few seconds round her mouth. "My Dick loved you very dearly, and no wonder," she said softly. "I have often longed to see you, and I'm sure I shall die happier now that I have done so."
Nell's visit lasted upwards of an hour. She explained to Marjory how it happened that she had been unable either to communicate with her or to visit her before. Greatly to her disappointment, young Evan was from home, he having been taken into the country to spend a few days with a married sister of Marjory's, but Nell was told that if she chose to come again in a week's time he would then be back, and this she promised herself that she certainly would do.