“Don’t,” said Joyce, helplessly. “If you give way you will make yourself worse. They may be mistaken. Perhaps it will come again after a year or two.”
He strove to cheer her, brought forward all the arguments he could think of, all the tender phrases his unaccustomed mind could suggest. At last the tears ceased for a time.
“But it is my means of livelihood gone,” she said. “When I leave here I shall starve.”
“Not while I live,” said Joyce, impulsively. Then he reflected. Surely she could not be entirely without means. He coloured slightly at his remark, as at an impertinence.
“I shall never get any money any more as long as I live,” said Yvonne. “I can only go from this hospital into the workhouse. And I won’t go there. I will pray to die rather.”
“But,” began Joyce, in an embarrassed way,
“I don’t understand. Forgive me for touching upon it—but has not Everard—?”
“No, oh, no! I refused. I could n’t take his money, if I was not his wife.”
“That’s absurd,” said Joyce. But his opinion did not alter the facts. He remained for a moment in thought. “Don’t lose heart,” he said at length. “Things are never as bad as they seem. I ’ve had awfully bad times and yet I have pulled through, somehow. You can live quietly for a little on what you have, and then—”
“But I have n’t a penny, Stephen,” she cried piteously. “Not a penny in the world. I earned scarcely anything the last year. If it hadn’t been for Dina, I don’t know what I should have done. I don’t own anything but a few sticks of furniture and some clothes—”