POOR MILLY.
When Milly walked out of Old Flick's store, she walked out with the
full determination of returning and possessing herself of the letter
he had received from Jim Pizey, and which she was certain the old man
had not destroyed. She had two reasons for her determination. One was
a woman's reason--she had made up her mind to have it, and have it she
would. A woman's logic is not always logical. The other reason was,
that she was convinced there was something in the letter concerning
herself. She did not stop to consider whether it would be good for her
to read it; it was a letter from Jim; and read it she would. She felt
hurt that he had sent her no word since his departure. There was
nothing strange in her affection for him. She had no one else to love
except her baby, and he was its father. He had deserted her, and still
she clung to him. There is no human being in the world who is so
complete an isolation as not to have a love for something; and the
unfortunate class to which Milly belonged is no exception to this
rule, for it is capable of strong, if misguided, affection.
To fortify herself for her task, Milly, after she had lolled her baby
to sleep, adjourned to the bar of a public house, where she told how
she had "done" Old Flick, and where she spent the greater portion of
the two pounds in treating her associates to drink. Having soon made
herself most thoroughly and desperately drunk, she set off staggering,
but very earnest, towards Old Flick's All-sorts Store. Her mind was in
a dangerous state of tension. She was almost blind from the fumes of
the spirits she had taken, and everything swam before her; but she
swung onwards, trolling out snatches of songs, and laughing and
talking to herself incoherently. She did not attract much attention.
A woman drunk was no novelty in that neighbourhood--indeed, her
state was chronic to the locality; and she was allowed to proceed
unmolested--some few people turning to look after her, but most
avoiding her. She had not far to go, and when she arrived at her
destination, she staggered in at the door, and sinking into a seat,
gazed confusedly about her. Brushing her hair from her face, she
looked round in vain for Old Flick.
"Now then, Flick," she said, almost inarticulately, "it's no use
hiding away. Lord! how my head swims! Come out and give me the
letter!"
She waited for an answer, but received none, for Old Flick was deep in
his drunken swoon upon the floor.
"Are you coming out, old sinner?" she asked, looking vaguely about
her. "I will have the letter--I will! I will! I will! You haven't
burnt it. You're not half cunning enough; I saw your hand go to your
pocket when you told me you'd burnt it. I'll tear your hair out of
your head if you don't give it to me!"
She felt dizzy and confused, and seeing a bucket filled with water in
the corner, she staggered instinctively towards it, and, tumbling down
by its side, plunged her face into it. It was deliriously cool; she
kept her face in it, until she almost lost her breath, and then
raising the bucket, she poured the water over her head. It refreshed,
if it did not sober her. A moment afterwards, as she seized her hair
to wring the water from it, she shivered, and turned cold as ice; and
then flashed into a burning heat. Wiping her face with her dress,
Milly, for the first time, observed Old Flick lying upon the floor.
Her eagerness to obtain possession of the letter appeared to desert
her for a time. But presently she crept towards the prostrate man, and
feeling in his pockets, found the letter. The old man murmured some
almost incoherent words, among which she heard her own name. She
laughed as she heard it, and said, "Oh, you old fox! Milly's done you,
this time. Here's Jim's letter. What does he say in it?" She wiped her
face again with her wet dress, and commenced to read the letter
slowly. She read to herself until she came to the last page, when she
cried, "What's this? 'After what you have told me about Milly, I never
want to look at her face again. I didn't think she would turn informer
against Jim Pizey. If ever I come across her, I'll mark her, by G--!'"
She read these lines twice over, and then, letting her hands fall idly
in her lap, looked before her, bewildered. "He never thought I would
turn informer against him!" she exclaimed, a cold shuddering taking
possession of her. "Oh, Lord! What's this feeling coming over me?
Somebody's been telling lies to him about me. Who is it? Me split upon
Jim! Who said so? She quite forgot the letter which she held tightly
clutched in her hand. She threw the damp hair back from her forehead,
and looked shudderingly round the room. Her skin was blazing, and
there was an awful brilliancy in her eyes. She was burning hot, and
she placed her hand upon her throbbing forehead, trying to press out
the pain; in a little while her condition changed, and she sat still,
shivering, and burst into a strange, wild laugh.
"What's the matter with me?" she murmured. "I never felt like this
before. Get up, Old Flick!" she said, softly, to herself, and with no
idea of addressing the old man. "Get up, Old Flick!"
She repeated the words almost in a whisper, twenty times at least, in
a wondering kind of voice, and sang them over and over again, in a
vacant manner.
"Oh, my head! my head!" she moaned, and then she commenced again
singing softly to herself, her voice breaking occasionally into a kind
of wail. She continued in this state for some time, and made no sign
of recognition of Old Flick when, after a series of growls, he sat up
on the floor. He gazed at her with stupified amazement, and he growled
as he looked down at the pool of water in which he had been lying. As
he raised his eyes, she caught his look, and introduced his name into
the meaningless words she was singing.
"Milly!" he cried, half frightened; but she showed no consciousness of
him. "She's going mad, I believe," he muttered. "Get up, Milly,
there's a dear, and go home."
But she was deaf to all his entreaties, and presently she began to
scream.
"There, Old Flick?" she cried. "Do you see the spiders creeping up the
wall? There they go, creeping, creeping, creeping, and now they're on
the ceiling, looking down upon us. Keep away--keep away!" she
screamed, clutching at the old man, who, almost scared out of his
senses, followed her gaze with fear. "They'll drop down upon us!
That's right Jim. Crush 'm--smash 'em! Ugh! You can't kill 'em half
quick enough. Do you see that big one leering down? That's Old Flick.
Smash him, Jim. Ugh! keep off! They're dropping from the ceiling upon
me!" and she writhed upon the floor, and plucked at her dress with her
hands, and shuddered and moaned distressfully.
At this moment, Grif, with his boot-stand on his shoulder, and his
brushes under his arm, entered the store. Receiving no answer to his
taps upon the counter, he peeped into the back room, and saw Milly
tearing madly at her dress, and Old Flick looking on helplessly, in an
agony of terror.
"What's up?" inquired Grif.
Old Flick rose instantly, and he clung to Grif as though the lad were
an anchor of hope.
"Don't grip so hard, Flick," cried Grif, who, being faint with hunger,
scarcely had strength to shake the old man off.
"Milly's mad, I think," said Old Flick. "Take her home, Grif--take her
home."
"How am I to take her home?" asked Grif, looking at Milly. She had
covered her face with her hands, and was in a terrible fit of
trembling. He went to her, and tried to remove her hands from her
face, but he could not succeed. Then, glancing about him, he caught
sight of a loaf of bread in the cupboard, the door of which was half
open. There it was--the bread for which he was craving! His heart beat
painfully as he saw it. Not even pity for the girl could overcome his
natural sensations of hunger. The gnawing within was more powerful
than pity. "What'll you give me if I take her away?" he inquired,
eyeing the loaf yearningly.
"Anything--anything--that is, anything in reason," quavered Old Flick,
qualifying his answer. "And if she ever darkens my door again," he
muttered, "I'll have her dragged to the lock-up, as sure as my name's
Flick."
Man is a bargaining animal. Despite his hunger, Grif pretended to
consider for a few moments. He knew that if he exhibited too much
eagerness, he would have less chance of obtaining the food.
"I'll take her away," he said slowly, "if you'll give me that loaf of
bread"--and he moved wistfully towards the cupboard,--"and this tin of
sardines--"
"Yes--yes," assented Old Flick, eagerly, taking the food from the
cupboard.
"And five bob for this stand and set of brushes," concluded Grif,
boldly.
"They're not yours," said the old man, all his cunning intellect on
the alert directly the question of barter arose.
"Never you mind that," said Grif; "it's not the first time you bought
what didn't belong to parties you bought 'em of. I won't take her away
for less. I'm hungry now, and I shall be hungry to-morrow. I must have
some tin."
"Take two and six, then, Grif," said Flick. "I'll give you two and
six."
Grif shook his head.
"Say four bob," he said, "and it's a bargain."
Old Flick hastily produced four shillings, and gave them to Grif, who
deposited on the table his vouchers to respectability, feeling, as he
did so, that he had lost his character as a moral shoe-black, and was
once more a vagrant and a thief. The next thing Grif did was to tear a
piece out of the loaf and wolfishly devour it. Theoretical
philanthropists might have learned a useful lesson if they had
witnessed the ravenous eagerness with which Grif swallowed the stale
dry bread. Old Flick was neither a theoretical nor a practical
philanthropist, and he viewed the proceeding with a feeling of
impatience, urging Grif to take Milly away quickly. It was not a
difficult task--indeed, it was so easily accomplished, that Flick was
filled with considerable remorse at the price he had paid for it.
Milly's fit was over for a while, and she rose almost passively as
Grif took her hand. She looked at Old Flick without recognising him;
but she instinctively shrank from him.
"You've been frightenin' of her," Grif said to the old man. "I've a
good mind to pitch into you."
Grif was stronger now, and having relapsed into vagrancy, felt himself
at liberty to indulge his organ of combativeness. But Old Flick, in a
quavering voice, protested that he had not been saying anything to
Milly to frighten her.
"She looks as if she had been scared out of her life," Grif remarked.
"She's been drinking herself mad, Grif," Old Flick said, "that's what
she's been doing. She'll be all right when she's had a good sleep."
Grif nodded his head, and led Milly away. She trembled violently as
they walked to her poor lodgings; and when she got to her room, she
threw herself upon the bed, and moaned and cried deliriously. She had
placed the letter she stole from Old Flick in the bosom of her dress,
and she kept her hand over it as if to guard it.
"She's orfle bad," mused Grif, seating himself on a stool at the foot
of the bed, and employing himself with the bread and sardines. "I
wonder if she knows me. Milly!"
The girl made no reply, and tossed about on the bed, sobbing
piteously. Grif tried the experiment of placing her baby near her; but
although he put the child into her arms, she did not notice it. She
was so restless that he took the baby on his lap, and offered her a
crust of bread, which, much to Grif's astonishment, she grasped with
her little fists and sucked at vigorously, staring contentedly at Grif
the while. But Milly's distress drew his attention from the study of
baby.
"Milly!" he cried again, shaking her, and attempting to raise her.
"Send I may live! if she ain't like a ball of fire! And she's all wet,
too. What did you say, Milly? Say that agin."
"And they've got hold of Dick Handfield," she murmured. "Oh! what a
wicked plot! If Grif knew--but I won't tell, no; though you do suspect
me."
"If I knew!" exclaimed Grif. "If I knew what? She said somethin' about
Dick Handfield! What does it all mean?"
He listened eagerly for her next words, which might give him a clue to
her meaning, but Milly's fancies had changed.
"Go home!" she said. "Why don't I go home, he asked? What would they
think of me? Don't come near me, father! Keep away; I'm not your
Milly--she's dead, long ago--dead! dead! dead! Do you see that sheet
of water?" and she half rose from the bed, and clutched Grif by the
shoulder. "Father's standing on the other side. What an awful way off
he is! He looks like a ghost. Does the water stretch into the next
world, I wonder! There it is--miles, and miles, and miles of it. And
look! just over the hill, where it flows out of the world, there's
father and mother, and they're looking at me, and crying, and I am
sinking down, down! I'm choking--take me out! take me out! Now I'm in
my coffin. They are nailing the cover on me! Don't shut out the light;
everything is black: now it's red. I can't breathe!" and she struggled
madly with Grif, who was holding her down. It was as much as his
strength could accomplish, and presently she grew calmer.
"I can't leave her like this," said Grif. "She's very ill, and she'll
do herself a mischief, if she ain't took care on. She's quiet now.
I'll run and fetch a doctor."
Acting on the impulse, Grif, first taking the baby from the bed, and
placing it upon the floor in a corner of the room, ran quickly to an
apothecary's shop hard-by. It happened fortunately that a doctor was
in the shop at the time, giving some directions for a prescription. He
listened to Grif's story, and, without a moment's hesitation,
accompanied Grif to Milly's lodgings. He looked very grave as lie
placed his hands upon Milly's burning forehead, and felt her pulse.
"How long has she been in this condition?" he asked.
Grif told him.
"Is she married? Umph! What a question! Of course she's not. Poor
creature! So young, too, and pretty. Sad case! Sad case!"
He took his pocket book from his pocket and made a memorandum, and
then observed, "If the poor girl has any friends, they should be here.
She wants care and nursing, although even they will not save her, I
fear. A female friend should be with her all the night. Come with me,
boy, and I will give you medicine."
In silence, Grif followed the doctor to the apothecary's shop, and in
silence he received the medicine which the doctor himself made up.
"You can read?" said the doctor.
"I know some of the letters," replied Grif, "when they're stuck upon
the wall very large."
"Ah!" mused the doctor, looking attentively at Grif. "Give her a
wineglassful of this medicine every hour; but don't wake her to give
it, if she is sleeping quietly. I will call again in the morning to
see how she is getting on."
"Is she very bad?" inquired Grif.
"Very," laconically replied the doctor
"Will she die?"
The doctor placed his hands upon Grif's shoulders, and noticed the
boy's eyes luminous with tears. "Would you be sorry?" he asked.
"Yes, sir; very sorry."
"What are you--brother, cousin, any relation?" was the next question,
carelessly asked.
"No, sir, not as I knows on; but she's been very kind to me."
"Don't stand chattering here!" the doctor exclaimed, abruptly. "Go and
give the girl her medicine."
Grif was on the point of quitting the shop, when the thought occurred
to him that the doctor ought to be paid. Taking from his pocket the
four shillings for which he had sold his boot-stand and brushes, he
placed them on the counter, immediately beneath the doctor's nose.
"What is this for, my lad?" asked the doctor.
Struck with a sense of the insufficiency of the remuneration, Grif
said, apologetically, "I ain't got another mag about me, sir. I'll
bring you some more when I gets it."
"Confound you, you young scamp!" exclaimed the doctor, in a fiery
manner. "Do you think I have no humanity? Take your four shillings
away, and here are ten more to add to them. Run off, and give the girl
her medicine, and mind she has some one with her during the night;"
and he pushed the boy hastily out of the shop.
When Grif returned to Milly, he found her still lying on the bed. He
spoke to her, but she did not reply to him. He was the more alarmed at
this because Milly was not asleep; her eyes were staring round the
room, and her cheeks were burning with an unnatural fire. He moistened
her parched lips with water, and tried to make her take the medicine,
but she pushed him away, fretfully, and turned from him.
"What's to be done?" asked Grif of himself, in serious perplexity.
"The doctor chap says she ought to have some one with her. He's a good
sort, he is! I can't get her to take her physic." Then, struck with a
sudden idea, he said, "I'll go and arks Ally."
Without another thought he hurried to Alice's lodgings. There was no
need to entreat her help. Her bonnet and shawl were on before he had
concluded his story.
"But she ain't a good girl, Ally," said Grif; "mind that!"
"God help her!" said Alice. "She is in the more need of assistance.
And the poor baby, too! Come, Grif."
And very soon our Alice was in the sick girl's room, attending on her,
and nursing her with a good woman's loving zeal. No thought of the
difference in their social positions interfered with the performance
of what Alice deemed to be a duty. She undressed Milly, and placed her
in the bed; and, raising the poor girl's head on her bosom, she gave
her the medicine, which Milly swallowed without resistance. Then Alice
tidied up the room, and hushed the baby to sleep by the mother's side.
She almost forgot her own grief in the sad spectacle before her, and
the tears came to her eyes out of very pity, as she sat beside the
sick girl's bed.
"Will you stop here all night, Ally?" asked Grif, who had retired from
the room, and who now entered at a signal from Alice.
"Yes, until the doctor comes in the morning."
"She's a angel, that what she is," soliloquised Grif, retreating to a
corner, and squatting himself upon the floor, "and I'm her friend. She
said so herself. There never was anybody 'arf so good as her!"
When Alice was undressing Milly, she observed the letter which lay
concealed in the bosom of Milly's dress; but, unconscious of all else,
the sick girl clutched the paper tightly in her hand, and, seeing her
desire to retain it, Alice made no effort to take it from her. Many
hours passed, and still Alice sat patiently by Milly's side. During
this time Milly was delirious, and raved and spoke words which caused
Alice to shudder. But pity for the poor girl's condition overcame
every repugnant feeling, and she nursed Milly tenderly and gently, as
if she were, indeed, a good and virtuous, instead of an erring,
sister. Shortly after midnight, the moon being nearly at its full,
Milly turned her eyes to Alice's face, and asked in a weak wondering
voice,--
"Who are you?"
"I am your friend, Milly," replied Alice. "Do you feel better?"
"Yes, I feel better." The words came from her lips slowly, and with an
effort. "Give me your hand."
Alice placed her hand in Milly's, and the sick girl raised it to her
lips, and to her forehead.
"Who sent you here?"
"No one. Grif told me you were ill, and I came to nurse you."
"I never saw you before. Good God!" Milly exclaimed, feeling Alice's
wedding ring. "You are married!"
"Yes."
"And you come to nurse me! Do you know what I am?" and she raised
herself in the bed, and her eyes dilated with horror as she looked
round the walls of the room.
"Hush, my dear! Lie down."
"What is this?" Milly cried, seizing Alice by the arm, and trembling
violently. "Everything is fading from my sight. Don't let me go! Hold
me--hold me! My heart is fainting--dying!" And a wild shriek issuing
from her lips, as she fell back powerless on the bed, roused Grif from
his slumber, and caused him to start to his feet.
A great change had come over Milly. Her face had grown pinched and
white, her hands were clammy, and a wild despairing look in her eyes
made them awful to look upon. Alice needed all her courage to keep
herself from swooning.
"Has she any friends, Grif?" she asked.
"None as I knows on," replied Grif. "Don't you know who she is?"
He was about to answer his own question, and tell Alice of Jim Pizey,
but just then Milly murmured the man's name.
"Why did you go away, Jim Pizey," she said, "and leave me to starve
and drink myself to death? And then to write, you never want to see my
face again. It is cruel--it is cruel! Look at me--I am dying, and you
have killed me. I don't want to die! Lord help me, I'm not fit to
die!"
"Grif," whispered Alice, "was not Jim Pizey the man who tempted my
husband to crime?"
"Yes," answered Grif, "and before I came for you she was speaking of
him."
"Of my husband, Richard?"
"Yes, but I couldn't make out what she meant."
Milly's wandering speech prevented the continuance of the subject.
"There's mother and father again," she said; "they're always haunting
me. I am glad they have come to wish me good-bye, though. I have been
a bad daughter to them--a bad daughter--a bad daughter. I'm punished
for it now. Forgive me, daddy! I think he does forgive me, his face is
so kind; but it was always kind when he looked at me. I can smell the
mignonette on the window-sill. And see! there's my little sister; she
died yesterday. How sad she looks in her shroud! She was prettier than
me. I slept with her the night before she died, and she told me to be
always good. I say, Jim, don't you think little Cis is prettier than
me?--she's better than me! I should like father to make me a basket
coffin. Where's baby?"
Alice placed the child in her arms, and as Milly pressed it to her
breast, the haggard look in her face quite passed away. She was very
young--scarcely nineteen years of age: but it was better for her to
die, young as she was, than live her life of shame.
"Do you know where there's a clergyman, Grif," asked Alice.
"No; what for?"
"I don't want a clergyman," gasped Milly. "Yes, my dear, I am quite
sensible now. I don't want a clergyman. Your good face is better than
all. Will you kiss me?"
Alice bent down and kissed her.
"Don't cry for me. I wonder why you should be here; for you know
I am a bad girl, and you are a respectable woman. Give me a little
drink--my throat is so dry! Oh, what a wicked life I have led! Will
God forgive me, do you think?"
"Yes, dear Milly," said Alice, weeping. "God will forgive you if you
ask Him."
"I do ask Him," said Milly, earnestly, but very slowly, for her voice
was failing her. "Fold my hands, dear. I do ask Him, humbly. Forgive
me, God!"
There was solemn silence in the room. Alice, kneeling by the bed,
checked her sobs, and watched every movement in the face of the dying
girl. Grif, bare-headed, stood by, in awe; his eyes were not crying,
but his heart was. For Grif was very troubled. He had never prayed to
God, and here in the quiet night, in the dread presence of death, the
thought of his own utter wickedness and unworthiness filled him with
gloom. He crept down on his knees, and lifting his hands, as if to a
visible Presence, he said--"Forgive me, God!" and trembled, and cried
softly to himself.
"Mine has been a wicked life," said Milly; "but I did not know what I
was doing--indeed, indeed I did not! I never stopped to think. You
believe me, don't you, dear?"
"I do believe you, my poor, poor Milly!"
"You break my heart, my dear, when you speak like that," said Milly,
the tears stealing down her face. Alice stooped and kissed her again.
"Thank you! it is more than I deserve. You are like a good angel
standing by my bed. What could I do? I was persuaded to run away from
my home by a young man, three years ago. We came out here, and he left
me. What could I do? Is all the sin mine? I was led away. It was not
all my fault. Oh, my dear! You are a married woman, and respectable;
you don't know the sufferings we poor girls endure!"
Ah! poor Alice! she thought of herself and of her own sad lot, and
laid her cheek close by the side of Milly's.
"How good you are!" said Milly, as thus they lay. "What is your name,
dear?"
"Alice."
A look of horror crept into Milly's eyes, and a change so ghastly came
over her countenance, that Alice caught at her as though she would
arrest the life she thought was passing away.
"Alice?" whispered Milly, slowly and painfully, for her strength was
leaving her. "Alice? Grif's friend?"
"Yes, dear," replied Alice, holding Molly's hand fast.
"And Richard Handfield is your husband?"
"Yes."
"If you knew--bend your head, for my breath is going--if you knew that
the man who is the father of my child had striven to do you a great
wrong, to blast your life--had schemed to sting your husband to
crime--your husband whom you love, do you not--?"
"Whom I love," repeated Alice, softly.
"--For whom, as I have heard Grif say, you would give your life--"
"For whom, if needed, I would give my life."
"--If you knew that Jim Pizey, my baby's father, was his bitterest
enemy, you would leave me to die alone--alone!"
"No, Milly, dear, I would not. I know that Jim Pizey tempted my
husband; but he escaped, thank God!"
"You think so--come closer--take this letter--and by-and-by, not
now"--she could not control her shudders as she said these words, and
gave Alice the letter she had stolen from Old Flick--"by-and-by, read
it. It is from Jim Pizey--he is a bad, wicked man, but I was living
with him. If ever you see him, let him know that I am dead, and that
with my last breath I asked you to forgive him."
"I will, Milly."
"Alice--may I call you Alice?--thank you--Alice, my dear, say you
forgive me, for any unconscious wrong I may have done you."
"I forgive you, Milly."
"God bless you! Ask him to give baby to some respectable people to
keep, and never to come near it--do you hear me?--never to come near
it. He is baby's father, but he must never come near it, or she will
be bad like me. Promise me this. I have no one else to ask."
"I promise, Milly."
"God be kind to you!" She lay quiet for a little while, and then she
whispered, "How dark it is! Is the moon shining, Alice?"
"Yes, Milly; it is at its full."
"Open the window, dear, and let it shine upon me. Thank you. What a
dreadful day this has been, and how quiet the night is! I can see the
moon--there is a ladder of light to it from my bed. There are figures
moving about in the light--I see your shadow in it, Alice, with your
dear eyes. Oh, God bless you! my dear, for being by my side. Kiss me
again. Good-bye! Place my baby's hand to my lips. God bless you, baby,
and make you good! Is that Grif? Good-bye, Grif!"
"Good-bye, Milly," said Grif, in a choking voice.
"And now, my dear, fold my hands once more. Forgive me, God!"
A rippling smile passed over Milly's face, and in that smile she died.
The light from the silver moon might have kissed away her life, she
yielded, it up so peacefully.
For half an hour no sound disturbed the silence. Then Alice, after
covering the face of the dead girl, opened the letter. She read, and
as she read, her eyes dilated, and with a shudder she sank into Grif's
arms. But she recovered herself by a strong effort, and reading a few
more lines, cried, in a voice of such anguish, that Grif's knees
trembled and his face turned ashen white.
"Oh, Grif! Grif! my heart is broken!"
"What is it, Ally? Are you ill?"
"Listen to me, Grif," said Alice, rapidly, and in a voice of strong
emotion. "The crisis of my life has come. You said once that you would
help me if you could--"
"And so I will!" cried the boy. "With my life! So help me G--!"
"This is a letter from Jim Pizey, that poor girl's associate. In it he
details his devilish schemes. He discloses how he and his vile
associates are going to rob Highlay Station--"
"Go on, Ally, go on," said Grif, eagerly, as Alice paused to recover
her breath.
"That is my father's Station, Grif. My father is displeased with
me, and that is the reason I am poor. He is rich--he always keeps
large sums of money in the house; and these men are going to rob
him--perhaps murder him."
"Jim Pizey don't stick at nothin'," put in Grif, rapidly. "I've heerd
him talk of Highlay, but I didn't know it was your father's. Let's go
and tell the peelers."
"I cannot! I dare not!" cried Alice. "For, oh, Grif! Grif! they have
entrapped my husband, who knows where my father keeps his gold. They
have entrapped him in the gang, and they, with my husband in their
company, are on the road to rob and murder my father. If I tell the
police, my husband is lost--lost!"
"What can we do?"
"We must get up there somehow. We must walk, if we cannot ride. We
must beg upon the road, Grif. They intend to wait--thank God! we may
be in time. They intend to wait, the letter says, until my father has
in his house a very large sum, with which he is about to purchase a
new Station. It is the whim of the seller that he should be paid in
gold. We may be in time. Oh! thou beneficent Lord!" exclaimed the
girl, as, falling upon her knees, she raised her streaming eyes to the
bright heavens, which shone upon her through the open window. "Grant
my prayer! Save my husband from this dread crime, and then let me
die!"
A silence, as of death, was in the chamber. The glory of the moon
shone full upon the upturned face of Alice, quivering with a strong
agony, and upon the death-couch of poor Milly, whose life of shame was
ended.
"You will come with me, Grif?" said Alice, presently.
"I am ready, Ally," Grif replied. He had been quietly packing up the
remains of his bread and sardines in a pocket-handkerchief.
She turned to leave the room, but her eyes fell upon Milly's baby, who
was lying asleep, with her hand on her dead mother's breast. She wrote
hastily upon a piece of paper, "To the kind doctor who gave medicine
to the poor girl who is dead: Take care of the baby, for the love of
God!" and pinned it upon the child's frock. Then, with one last
look--a look of blended pity and despair--at the form of the dead
girl, Alice took Grif s hand, and went out with him into the open.