han ever.
"It is of no use, sir. I will not do it. Put up your money. I will
not touch your money. I will do anything else I can to comfort you;
but I will not touch your keys or your money."
"Anything else anything else!" said old Featherstone, with hoarse rage,
which, as if in a nightmare, tried to be loud, and yet was only just
audible. "I want nothing else. You come here--you come here."
Mary approached him cautiously, knowing him too well. She saw him
dropping his keys and trying to grasp his stick, while he looked at her
like an aged hyena, the muscles of his face getting distorted with the
effort of his hand. She paused at a safe distance.
"Let me give you some cordial," she said, quietly, "and try to compose
yourself. You will perhaps go to sleep. And to-morrow by daylight you
can do as you like."
He lifted the stick, in spite of her being beyond his reach, and threw
it with a hard effort which was but impotence. It fell, slipping over
the foot of the bed. Mary let it lie, and retreated to her chair by
the fire. By-and-by she would go to him with the cordial. Fatigue
would make him passive. It was getting towards the chillest moment of
the morning, the fire had got low, and she could see through the chink
between the moreen window-curtains the light whitened by the blind.
Having put some wood on the fire and thrown a shawl over her, she sat
down, hoping that Mr. Featherstone might now fall asleep. If she went
near him the irritation might be kept up. He had said nothing after
throwing the stick, but she had seen him taking his keys again and
laying his right hand on the money. He did not put it up, however, and
she thought that he was dropping off to sleep.
But Mary herself began to be more agitated by the remembrance of what
she had gone through, than she had been by the reality--questioning
those acts of hers which had come imperatively and excluded all
question in the critical moment.
Presently the dry wood sent out a flame which illuminated every
crevice, and Mary saw that the old man was lying quietly with his head
turned a little on one side. She went towards him with inaudible
steps, and thought that his face looked strangely motionless; but the
next moment the movement of the flame communicating itself to all
objects made her uncertain. The violent beating of her heart rendered
her perceptions so doubtful that even when she touched him and listened
for his breathing, sh
|