"Oh, I forgot," she cried. "You ought not to look at it. It is upset, unclean; it was never well attended to even while he was here. It will make you hate me."
"No, no; let me see it, please," Tilly pleaded, taking the lamp into her own hand. "I can go alone—in fact, in fact, I'd like to be alone there for a little while, Mrs. Trott, if you wouldn't mind."
Lizzie hesitated a moment and then gave in. "It is the last door on the left," she said. "I'm sorry it is in such a bad condition."
"Very well, I'll find it," Tilly answered, and, leaving Lizzie below, she went up the stairs.
CHAPTER XLIII
She was absent more than an hour. Lizzie was becoming afraid of something she knew not what—something due, perhaps, to the suggestion laid upon her by Jane Holder's abortive attempt, when Tilly appeared at the head of the stairs, her nunlike face in the disk of the lamp's rays.
"I've swept and dusted, and made the bed," she said. "There are a few of his things that I'd like to have, provided you don't want to keep them—the books, the drawings, and his hat and shoes."
"You may have them," Lizzie answered, as they went back into the parlor and sat down.
"I am going to ask another favor," Tilly went on. "I intended to spend the night at the cottage, but if you wouldn't mind I'd like to stay here with you and sleep in John's old bed. You may think it odd, but I want to do it, Mrs. Trott. I want to do it more than anything in the world."