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“How are you, now, Mercy?” asked the old man awkwardly.

The old woman shook her head. “I’m a-goin’ fast, Jim,” she grumbled weakly, and a tear of self-pity trickled down her parchment cheek.

“What rubbidge she do talk!” cried Honor, sharply. “Why d’ye stand there like a tailor’s dummy? Why don’t you tell her to cheer up?”

“Cheer up, Mercy,” quavered the old man, hoarsely.

But Mercy groaned instead, and turned fretfully on her other side, with her face to the wall.

“I’m too old, I’m too old,” she moaned, “this is the end o’ me.”

“Did you ever hear the like?” Honor asked Jim, angrily, as she smoothed his wife’s pillow. “She was always conceited about her age, settin’ herself up as the equals of her elders, and here am I, her elder sister, as carried her in my arms when I was five and she was two, still hale and strong, and with no mind for underground for many a day. Nigh three times her age I was once, mind you, and now she has the imperence to talk of dyin’ before me.”

She took off her bonnet and shawl. “Send one o’ the kids to tell my boy I’m stayin’ here,” she said, “and then just you get ’em all to bed–there’s too much noise about the house.”

The children, who were orphaned grandchildren of the dying woman, were sent to bed, and then Jim himself was packed off to refresh himself for the next day’s labours, for the poor old fellow still doddered about the workshop.

The silence of the sick-room spread over the whole house. About ten o’clock the doctor came again and instructed Honor how to alleviate the patient’s last hours. All night long she sat watching her dying sister, hand and eye alert to anticipate every wish. No word broke the awful stillness.

The first thing in the morning, Mercy’s married daughter, the only child of hers living in London, arrived to nurse her mother. But Honor indignantly refused to be dispossessed.

“A nice daughter you are,” she said, “to leave your mother lay a day and a night without a sight o’ your ugly face.”

“I had to look after the good man, and the little ‘uns,” the daughter pleaded.

“Then what do you mean by desertin’ them now?” the irate old woman retorted. “First you deserts your mother, and then your husband and children. You must go back to them as needs your care. I carried your mother in my arms before you was born, and if she wants anybody else now to look after her, let her just tell me so, and I’ll be off in a brace o’ shakes.”

She looked defiantly at the yellow, dried-up creature in the bed. Mercy’s withered lips twitched, but no sound came from them. Jim, strung up by the situation, took the word. “You can’t do no good up here, the doctor says. You might look after the kids downstairs a bit, when you can spare an hour, and I’ve got to go to the shop. I’ll send you a telegraph if there’s a change,” he whispered to the daughter, and she, not wholly discontented to return to her living interests, kissed her mother, lingered a little, and then stole quietly away.

All that day the old women remained together in solemn silence, broken only by the doctor’s visit. He reported that Mercy might last a couple of days more. In the evening Jim replaced his sister-in-law, who slept perforce. At midnight she reappeared and sent him to bed. The sufferer tossed about restlessly. At half-past two she awoke, and Honor fed her with some broth, as she would have fed a baby. Mercy, indeed, looked scarcely bigger than an infant, and Honor only had the advantage of her by being puffed out with clothes. A church clock in the distance struck three. Then the silence fell deeper. The watcher drowsed, the lamp flickered, tossing her shadow about the walls as if she, too, were turning feverishly from side to side. A strange ticking made itself heard in the wainscoting. Mercy sat up with a scream of terror. “Jim!” she shrieked, “Jim!”