Meg had moved into her own room, having bought a few bits of furniture, and had made it as bright as she could with a pot or two of flowers in the window and a clean curtain, and she kept her window wide open day and night; but the summer was an unusually hot one and the girl drooped before she had been a week in London. One morning as Mrs. Webb came back from her work expecting to find Meg with Willie, she found he had seen nothing of her, and on knocking and getting no answer she opened the door to find the girl in bed in a state of high fever. Mrs. Webb was not aware that Meg, fearing that her money would come to an end before she had earned any with which to replace it, had been living on next to nothing; so that when she was attacked by fever she had no strength to resist it. The girl was moaning and tossing from side to side. "You ain't well, my dear," said Mrs. Webb. "It's my head," groaned Meg. "It's so terrible hot. Can you give me a drink of water?" "Surely, and I'll send for the doctor right away." "No, don't send for the doctor. I ain't got no money to pay him. And it don't matter. I want to die. Just leave me." "I'll get an order for the parish doctor," said Mrs. Webb. "And don't talk so foolish about dying. You're not going to die. Not a bit of it." Meg groaned. "I wish I could. I wish I could," she sighed. "No one wants me. No one would care if I died." "That ain't true my dear. I guess that young man you told me about, your Jem as you call him, would be mighty put about to find you dead. Men don't forget like that." "Yes they do. Jem has a right to forget because I turned my back upon him. They've all forgotten. Sheila and Miss Gregson and the lot of them. I want to die." "You'll be better by and bye," said Mrs. Webb, putting a kind though hot hand on the girl's forehead. "And anyway God hasn't forgot you." "Hasn't He? How do you know? I've prayed many a time 'O God, take care of me,' and look at me now." "And ain't He answered your prayer?" said Mrs. Webb. "How about that wicked woman that tried to get hold of you? If it hadn't been that I had been sent by that very train where would you be now? Wasn't it God that took care of you then?" "Yes, I suppose He's given me you," said Meg, the tears coursing down her face. "I'm afraid I've been ever so ungrateful talking like this, you've been more than kind; and you're the only friend I have in the world." "Come, come, my dear. Don't worry over it, there's a dear. It won't do you no good to cry. I'll go for the parish doctor and see what he says about you." By the time Mrs. Webb had returned, delirium had set in and Meg was talking softly and hurriedly to herself. "I'd do anything to please you," she whispered, turning her head restlessly from side to side, "and I'll try hard to talk grammar. It ain't because I don't try. Oh! hark, that's the night hawk. Miss Gregson do go away and leave me, I ain't fit for fine company. Jem! Jem! Jem!"