There is more animation in the life of the feeblest insect that flies than in the life that is left in her.When you look at her now, try to think that she is in heaven.That is the best comfort I can give you, after telling the hard truth."I did not believe him.I could not believe him.So long as she breathed at all, so long I was resolved to hope.Soon after the doctor was gone, Sally came in again, and found me listening (if I may call it so) at Mary's lips.She went to where my little hand-glass hangs against the wall, took it down, and gave it to me.
"See if the breath marks it," she said.
Yes; her breath did mark it, but very faintly.Sally cleaned the glass with her apron, and gave it back to me.As she did so, she half stretched out her hand to Mary's face, but drew it in again suddenly, as if she was afraid of soiling Mary's delicate skin with her hard, horny fingers.Going out, she stopped at the foot of the bed, and scraped away a little patch of mud that was on one of Mary's shoes.
"I always used to clean 'em for her," said Sally, "to save her hands from getting blacked.May I take 'em off now, and clean 'em again?"I nodded my head, for my heart was too heavy to speak.Sally took the shoes off with a slow, awkward tenderness, and went out.
An hour or more must have passed, when, putting the glass over her lips again, I saw no mark on it.I held it closer and closer.
I dulled it accidentally with my own breath, and cleaned it.Iheld it over her again.Oh, Mary, Mary, the doctor was right! Iought to have only thought of you in heaven!
Dead, without a word, without a sign--without even a look to tell the true story of the blow that killed her! I could not call to anybody, I could not cry, I could not so much as put the glass down and give her a kiss for the last time.I don't know how long I had sat there with my eyes burning, and my hands deadly cold, when Sally came in with the shoes cleaned, and carried carefully in her apron for fear of a soil touching them.At the sight of that--I can write no more.My tears drop so fast on the paper that Ican see nothing.
March 12th.She died on the afternoon of the eighth.On the morning of the ninth, I wrote, as in duty bound, to her stepmother at Hammersmith.There was no answer.I wrote again; my letter was returned to me this morning unopened.For all that woman cares, Mary might be buried with a pauper's funeral; but this shall never be, if I pawn everything about me, down to the very gown that is on my back.The bare thought of Mary being buried by the workhouse gave me the spirit to dry my eyes, and go to the undertaker's, and tell him how I was placed.I said if he would get me an estimate of all that would have to be paid, from first to last, for the cheapest decent funeral that could be had, I would undertake to raise the money.He gave me the estimate, written in this way, like a common bill:
A walking funeral complete............Pounds 1 13 8Vestry.......................................0 4 4Rector.......................................0 4 4Clerk........................................0 1 0Sexton.......................................0 1 0Beadle.......................................0 1 0Bell.........................................0 1 0Six feet of ground...........................0 2 0------
Total Pounds 2 8 4If I had the heart to give any thought to it, I should be inclined to wish that the Church could afford to do without so many small charges for burying poor people, to whose friends even shillings are of consequence.But it is useless to complain; the money must be raised at once.The charitable doctor--a poor man himself, or he would not be living in our neighborhood--has subscribed ten shillings toward the expenses; and the coroner, when the inquest was over, added five more.Perhaps others may assist me.If not, I have fortunately clothes and furniture of my own to pawn.And I must set about parting with them without delay, for the funeral is to be to-morrow, the thirteenth.
The funeral--Mary's funeral! It is well that the straits and difficulties I am in keep my mind on the stretch.If I had leisure to grieve, where should I find the courage to face to-morrow?
Thank God they did not want me at the inquest.The verdict given, with the doctor, the policeman, and two persons from the place where she worked, for witnesses, was Accidental Death.The end of the cravat was produced, and the coroner said that it was certainly enough to suggest suspicion; but the jury, in the absence of any positive evidence, held to the doctor's notion that she had fainted and fallen down, and so got the blow on her temple.They reproved the people where Mary worked for letting her go home alone, without so much as a drop of brandy to support her, after she had fallen into a swoon from exhaustion before their eyes.The coroner added, on his own account, that he thought the reproof was thoroughly deserved.After that, the cravat-end was given back to me by my own desire, the police saying that they could make no investigations with such a slight clew to guide them.They may think so, and the coroner, and doctor, and jury may think so; but, in spite of all that has passed, I am now more firmly persuaded than ever that there is some dreadful mystery in connection with that blow on my poor lost Mary's temple which has yet to be revealed, and which may come to be discovered through this very fragment of a cravat that I found in her hand.I cannot give any good reason for why I think so, but I know that if I had been one of the jury at the inquest, nothing should have induced me to consent to such a verdict as Accidental Death.
After I had pawned my things, and had begged a small advance of wages at the place where I work to make up what was still wanting to pay for Mary's funeral, I thought I might have had a little quiet time to prepare myself as I best could for to-morrow.But this was not to be.When I got home the landlord met me in the passage.He was in liquor, and more brutal and pitiless in his way of looking and speaking than ever I saw him before.
