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“Good evening,” he said, touching his hat.

“Oh!” the girl uttered a cry.”Higgler! What do you come for?” It was the longest sentence she had ever spoken to him; a sad frightened voice.

“I thought” he began “I’d call—and see Mrs. Sadgrove. I wondered …”

“Mother’s dead,” said the girl. She drew the door further back, as if inviting him, and he entered. The door was shut behind him, and they were alone in darkness, together. The girl was deeply grieving. Trembling, he asked the question: “What is it you tell me, Mary?”

“Mother’s dead,” repeated the girl, “all day, all day, all
day.” They were close to each other, but he could not see her. All round the house the wind roved lamentingly, shuddering at doors and windows.”She died in the night. The doctor was to have come, but he has not come all day,” Mary whispered; “all day, all day. I don’t understand; I have waited for him, and he has not come. She died, she was dead in her bed this morning, and I’ve been alone all day, all day, and I don’t know what is to be done.”

“I’ll go for the doctor,” he said hastily, but she took him by the hand and drew him into the kitchen. There was no candle lit; a fire was burning there, richly glowing embers, that laid a gaunt shadow of the table across a corner of the ceiling. Every dish on the dresser gleamed, the stone floor was rosy, and each smooth curve on the dark settle was shining like ice. Without invitation he sat down.

“No,” said the girl, in a tremulous voice, “you must help me.” She lit a candle: her face was white as the moon, her lips were sharply red, and her eyes were wild.”Come,” she said, and he followed her behind the settle and up the stairs to a room where there was a disordered bed, and what might be a body lying under the quilt. The higgler stood still staring at the form under the quilt. The girl, too, was still and staring. Wind dashed upon the ivy at the window and hallooed like a grieving multitude. A crumpled gown hid the body’s head, but thrust from under it, almost as if to greet him, was her naked lean arm, the palm of the hand lying uppermost. At the foot of the bed was a large washing bowl, with sponge and towels.

“You’ve been laying her out! Yourself!” exclaimed Witlow. The pale girl set down the candle on a chest of drawers.”Help me now,” she said, and moving to the bed she lifted the crumpled gown from off the face of the dead woman, at the same time smoothing the quilt closely up to the body’s chin.”I cannot put the gown on, because of her arm, it has gone stiff.” She shuddered, and stood holding the gown as if offering it to the man. He lifted that dead naked arm and tried to place it down at the body’s side, but it resisted and he let go his hold. The arm swung back to its former outstretched position, as if it still lived and resented that pressure. The girl retreated from the bed with a timorous cry.

“Get me a bandage,” he said, “or something we can tear up.”

She gave him some pieces of linen.

“I’ll finish this for you,” he brusquely whispered.”You get along downstairs and take a swig of brandy. Got any brandy?”

She did not move. He put his arm around her and gently urged her to the door.

“Brandy,” he repeated, “and light your candles.”

He watched her go heavily down the stairs before he shut the door. Returning to the bed he lifted the quilt. The dead body was naked and smelt of soap. Dropping the quilt he lifted the out-stretched arm again, like cold wax to the touch and unpliant as a sturdy sapling, and tried once more to bend it to the body’s side. As he did so the bedroom door blew open with a crash. It was only a draught of the wind, and a loose latch—Mary had opened a door downstairs, perhaps—but it awed him, as if some invisible looker were there resenting his presence. He went and closed the door; the latch had a loose hasp, and tiptoeing nervously back he seized the dreadful arm with a sudden brutal energy, and bent it by thrusting his knee violently into the hollow of the elbow. Hurriedly he slipped the gown over the head and inserted the arm in the sleeve. A strange impulse of modesty stayed him for a moment: should he call the girl and let her complete the robing of the naked body under the quilt? That preposterous pause seemed to add a new anger to the wind, and again the door sprang open. He delayed no longer, but letting it remain open, he uncovered the dead woman. As he lifted the chill body the long outstretched arm moved and tilted like the boom of a sail, but crushing it to its side he bound the limb fast with the strips of linen. So Mrs. Sadgrove was made ready for her coffin. Drawing the quilt back to her neck, with a gush of relief he glanced about the room. It was a very ordinary bedroom, bed, washstand, chest of drawers, chair and two pictures—one of deeply religious import, and the other a little pink print, in a gilded frame, of a bouncing nude nymph recumbent upon a cloud. It was queer: a lot of people, people whom you wouldn’t think it of, had that sort of picture in their bedrooms.