The doctor had left written instructions, which the nurse handed over to Meynell. If certain symptoms appeared, the doctor was to be summoned. But in all probability the man's fine constitution, injured though it had been by drink, would enable him to hold out another day or two. And the hideous pain of the first week had now ceased; mortification had almost certainly set in, and all that could be done was to wait the slow and sure failure of the heart. The nurse took leave. Meynell was hanging up his hat in the little passageway, when the door of the front parlour opened, after being unlocked. Meynell looked round. "Good evening, Mrs. Bateson. You are coming upstairs, I hope, with me?" He spoke gently, but with a quiet authority. The woman in the doorway shook her head. She was thin and narrow-chested. Her hair was already gray, though she could not have been more than thirty-five, and youth and comeliness had been long since battered from her face, partly by misery of mind, partly by direct ill usage of which there were evident traces. She looked steadily at the Rector. "I'm not going," she said. "He's nowt to me. But I'd like to know what the doctor was thinkin' of him." "The doctor thinks he may live through to-night and to-morrow night--not much more. He is your husband, Mrs. Bateson, and whatever you have against him, you'll be very sorry afterward if you don't give him help and comfort in his death. Come up now, I beg of you, and watch with me. He might die at any moment." And Meynell put out his hand kindly toward the woman standing in the shadow, as though to lead her. But she stepped backward. "I know what I'm about," she said, breathing quick. "He made a fule o' me wi' that wanton Lizzie Short, and he near killt me the last morning afore he went. And I'd been a good wife to him for fifteen year, and never a word between us till that huzzy came along. And she's got a child by him, and he must go and throw it in my face that I'd never given him one. And he struck and cursed me that last morning--he wished me dead, he said. And I sat and prayed God to punish him. An' He did. The roof came down on him. And now he mun die. I've done wi' him--and she's done wi' him. He's made his bed, and he mun lig on it." The Rector put up his hand sternly. "Don't! Mrs. Bateson. Those are words you'll repent when you yourself come to die. He has sinned toward you--but remember!--he's a young man still--in the prime of life. He has suffered horribly--and he has only a few hours or days to live. He has asked for you already to-day, he is sure to ask for you to-night. Forgive him!--ask God to help him to die in peace!"