'Mistress,' he said to the landlady, in his slow, staid way, 'I have brought ye a little money that ye may buy any small things the lass may want; it is all I can spare the now; I will call in the morning and see how she is.'
'You needn't do that,' said the tall woman. 'Poor Mary Anne—she'll be at the shop.'
'She shall not be at the shop!' he said, with a frown. 'Are ye a mad woman? The girl is ill.'
'She'll have to be at the shop, or lose her place,' said the landlady, with composure. 'There's too many young girls after situations now-a-days, and they won't be bothered with weakly ones.'
CHAPTER IV.
A RESOLVE.
However, as it turned out, there was to be no shop for Mary Anne the next day or for many a day to come. When John Douglas called in the morning, he was informed that she was 'delirious-like.' She was imploring the doctor—who had been there an hour before—not to let her lose her situation. She was talking about her mother and sisters in an incoherent way; also about one Pete, who appeared to have gone away to Australia and never written since. Douglas looked at the girl, lying there with her flushed face, closed eyes, and troubled breathing, unconscious of his presence, only twisting the bed-clothes about with her hot hands.
'Poor Mary Ann,' the landlady said contemplatively. 'If she dies, she'll 'ave to be buried by the work'us. And if she lives, she'll be worse off than ever; for they won't take a girl with cropped hair into a shop, and the fear of infection besides. She ain't got a friend in the world, she ain't; except her own people, and they're only a drain on the poor thing. Poor Mary Ann! she have had a bad time of it. Perhaps it would be kinder in Providence if He took her; for who's to pay for her keep if she gets through the fever? Not that I would ask to be paid for her lodging; I ain't one like that; there's her room, and welcome; that's what I says to my husband when he come home last night; and neither him nor me's afraid of fever, nor would turn out a poor thing as have been took. But law! it would be months afore she'd get another place; and she ain't got nobody to look after her.'
'What have you done with the money I gave you last night?' he asked.
'There it lies, sir—on the mantel-shelf. It ain't for me to touch; it is for the doctor to give his orders about that money.'