With blurred vision Sidney saw Hewett enter
and come forward. They grasped each other's hands without speaking,
and John, as though his strength were at an end, dropped upon the
chair by the bedside. For the last four or five nights he had sat
there; if he got half an hour's painful slumber now and then it was
the utmost. His face was like that of some prisoner, whom the long
torture of a foul dungeon has brought to the point of madness. He
uttered only a few words during the half-hour that Sidney still
remained in the room. The latter, when Mrs. Hewett's relapse into
unconsciousness made it useless for him to stay, beckoned Amy to
follow him out into the area and put money in her hand, begging her
to get whatever was needed without troubling her father. He would
come again in the morning.
Mrs. Hewett died just before daybreak without a pang, as though
death had compassion on her. When Sidney came, about nine o'clock,
he found Amy standing at the door of the milk-shop; the people who
kept it had brought the children up into their room. Hewett still
sat by the bed; seeing Kirkwood, he pointed to the hidden face.
'How am I to bury her?' he whispered hoarsely.
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