y one rashly, but--I think he'd a notion of
starvin' to death, an' got himself so low. Come to me las' week, an'
pawned his coat for my back room to sleep in. He eat nothin' then: I
seen that. An' he used to go out an' look at the dam for hours: but he
never throwed himself in. Since he took to bed, we keep him up with
broth and sech as we have,--Sally an' me. Sir? Afford it? Hum! We're not
as well off as we have been," dryly; "but I'm not a beast to see a man
starvin' under my roof. Oh, certingly, Ma'am; go up."

And while Jane mounted the rickety back-stairs, she turned to the door
to meet two or three women with shawls pinned about their heads.

"He's very poorly, Mis' Crawford, thank ye, Mem. No, you can't do
nothing'," in a sepulchral whisper, which continued in a lower tone,
with a nod back to the Doctor and Andy.

Starke's affair was a godsend to the neighborhood, Dr. Bowdler saw.
Untrained people enjoy a sickness with more keenness and hearty
good-feeling than you do the opera. The Doctor had providently brought a
flask of brandy in his pocket. He went on tiptoe up the creaking stairs
and gave it to Jane. She was standing, holding the handle of the door,
not turning it.

"What is it, Jane?" cheerfully. "What do you tremble for, eh?"

"Nothin'",--chewing her lips and opening the door. "It's ten years
since,"--to herself, as she went in.

Not when she was a shy girl had he been to her what these ten years of
desertion had made him.

It was half an hour before the Doctor and Andy went up softly into the
upper room and sat quietly down out of sight in the corner. Jane was
sitting on the low cot-bed, holding Starke's head on her breast. They
could not see her face in the feeble light. She had some brandy and
water in a glass, and gave him a spoonful of it now and then; and when
she had done that, smoothed the yellow face incessantly with her hard
fingers. The Doctor fancied that such dumb pain and affection as there
was in even that little action ought to bring him to life, if he were
dead. There was some color on his cheeks, and occasionally he opened his
eyes and tried to speak, but closed them wearily. They watched by him
until midnight; his pulse grew stronger by that time, and he lay
wistfully looking at his wife like one who had wakened out of a long
death, and tried to collect his thought. She did not speak nor stir,
knowing on how slight a thread his sense hung.

"Jane!" he said, at last.

They ben