“Kill her! Kill her!”
“Mr. Horsepool!” cried Ethel, leaning against the bed, white as the sheets, and trembling. “Whatever are you saying?”
“I tell yer it’s ’er fault as th’ pain comes on—I tell yer it is! Kill’er-kill’er!”
“Kill Mrs. Horsepool!” cried the trembling girl. “Why, you’re ever so fond of her, you know you are.”
“The peen—I ha’e such a lot o’ peen—I want to kill ’er.”
He was subsiding. When he sat down his wife collapsed in a chair, weeping noiselessly. The tears ran down Ethel’s face. He sat staring out of the window; then the old, hurt look came on his face.
“What’ ave I been sayin’?” he asked, looking piteously at his wife.
“Why!” said Ethel, “you’ve been carrying on something awful, saying: ‘Kill her, kill her!’”
“Have I, Lucy?” he faltered.
“You didn’t know what you were saying,” said his young wife gently but coldly.
His face puckered up. He bit his lips, then broke into tears, sobbing uncontrollaby, with his face to the window.
There was no sound in the room but of three people crying bitterly, breath caught in sobs. Suddenly Lucy put away her tears and went over to him.
“You didn’t know what you was sayin’, Willy, I know you didn’t. I knew you didn’t, all the time. It doesn’t matter, Willy. Only don’t do it again.”
In a little while, when they were calmer, she went downstairs with Ethel.
“See if anybody is looking in the street,” she said.
Ethel went into the parlour and peeped through the curtains.
“Aye!” she said. “You may back your life Lena an’ Mrs. Severn’ll be out gorping, and that clat-fartin’ Mrs. Allsop. ”
“Oh, I hope they haven’t heard anything! If it gets about as he’s out of his mind, they’ll stop his compensation, I know they will.”
“They’d never stop his compensation for that,” protested Ethel.
“Well, they have been stopping some—”
“It’ll not get about. I s’ll tell nobody.”
“Oh, but if it does, whatever shall we do... ?”
