She shivered, sat up, and dragged the cloak tight round her shoulders. In her desire to get warm she forgot what had happened. She extended the palms of her hands towards the grate: the grate was delicious. A smoking lump of coal clattered on to the fender: she lifted the tongs, but the sickening remembrance arrested her. The things in the room were receding, dancing round: the fire was growing taller and taller. The woollen scarf chafed her skin: she wrenched it off. Then hope, keen and bitter, shot up, hurting her. "How could he know? Of course he couldn't know. She'd been a lot better this last fortnight--the other doctor said so--she didn't believe it--she didn't care----Anyway, it would be over before the end of February!" Suddenly the crooning wail started again: next, spasms of weeping, harsh and gasping. By-and-by she understood that she was crying noisily, and that she was alone in the room; like a light in a wind, the sobbing fit ceased. "Let me live--let me live--I'll be straight--I'll go to church--I'll do anything! Take it away--it hurts--I can't bear it!" Once more the sound of her own voice in the empty room calmed her. But the tension of emotion slackened, only to tighten again: immediately she was jeering at herself. What was she wasting her breath for? What had Jesus ever done for her? She'd had her fling, and it was no thanks to Him. "'Dy-sy--Dy-sy----'" From the street below, boisterous and loud, the refrain came up. And, as the footsteps tramped away, the words reached her once more, indistinct in the distance: "'I'm jest cryzy, all for the love o' you.'" She felt frightened. It was like a thing in a play. It was as if some one was there, in the room--hiding--watching her. Then a coughing fit started, racking her. In the middle, she struggled to cry for help; she thought she was going to suffocate. Afterwards she sank back, limp, tired, and sleepy. The end of February--she was going to die--it was important, exciting--what would it be like? Everybody else died. Midge had died in the summer--but that was worry and going the pace. And they said that Annie Evans was going off too. Damn it! she wasn't going to be chicken-hearted. She'd face it. She'd had a jolly time. She'd be game till the end. Hell-fire--that was all stuff and nonsense--she knew that. It would be just nothing--like a sleep. Not even painful: she'd be just shut down in a coffin, and she wouldn't know that they were doing it. Ah! but they might do it before she was quite dead! It had happened sometimes. And she wouldn't be able to get out. The lid would be nailed, and there would be earth on the top. And if she called, no one would hear. Ugh! what a fit of the blues she was getting! It was beastly, being alone. Why the devil didn't Dick come back? That noise, what was that? Bah! only some one in the street. What a fool she was!