then she'd start to forget me. You'd
see, she'd never come home here to look at my grave, not even once."

"Why, William," said his mother, "you're not going to die, so why talk
about it?"

"But whether or not--" he replied.

"And she can't help it. She is like that, and if you choose her--well,
you can't grumble," said his mother.

On the Sunday morning, as he was putting his collar on:

"Look," he said to his mother, holding up his chin, "what a rash my
collar's made under my chin!"

Just at the junction of chin and throat was a big red inflammation.

"It ought not to do that," said his mother. "Here, put a bit of this
soothing ointment on. You should wear different collars."

He went away on Sunday midnight, seeming better and more solid for his
two days at home.

On Tuesday morning came a telegram from London that he was ill. Mrs.
Morel got off her knees from washing the floor, read the telegram,
called a neighbour, went to her landlady and borrowed a sovereign, put
on her things, and set off. She hurried to Keston, caught an express for
London in Nottingham. She had to wait in Nottingham nearly an hour. A
small figure in her black bonnet, she was anxiously asking the porters
if they knew how to get to Elmers End. The journey was three hours. She
sat in her corner in a kind of stupor, never moving. At King's Cross
still no one could tell her how to get to Elmers End. Carrying her
string bag, that contained her nightdress, a comb and brush, she went
from person to person. At last they sent her underground to Cannon
Street.

It was six o'clock when she arrived at William's lodging. The blinds
were not down.

"How is he?" she asked.

"No better," said the landlady.

She followed the woman upstairs. William lay on the bed, with bloodshot
eyes, his face rather discoloured. The clothes were tossed about, there
was no fire in the room, a glass of milk stood on the stand at his
bedside. No one had been with him.

"Why, my son!" said the mother bravely.

He did not answer. He looked at her, but did not see her. Then he began
to say, in a dull voice, as if repeating a letter from dictation: "Owing
to a leakage in the hold of this vessel, the sugar had set, and become
converted into rock. It needed hacking--"

He was quite unconscious. It had been his business to examine some such
cargo of sugar in the Port of London.

"How long has he been like this?" the mother asked the landlady.

"He got home at si