“The weeks went by, and her husband did not come.  I think the trouble and anxiety caused by his delay did a good deal towards hastening the inevitable end; but she bore her grief very quietly, and never uttered a complaint of him in my hearing.  She paid her way regularly enough for a considerable time, and then all at once broke down, and confessed to the landlady that she had not a shilling more in the world.  The woman was a hard creature, and told her that if that was the case, she must find some other lodgings, and immediately.  I heard this, not from Mrs. Nowell, but from the landlady, who seemed to consider her conduct thoroughly justified by the highest code of morals.  She was a lone unprotected woman, and how was she to pay her rent and taxes if her best floor was occupied by a non-paying tenant?

“I was by no means a rich man; but I could not endure to think of that helpless dying creature thrust out into the streets; and I told my landlady that I would be answerable for Mrs. Nowell’s rent, and for the daily expenses incurred on her behalf.  Mr. Nowell would in all probability appear in good time to relieve me from the responsibility, but in the mean while that poor soul upstairs was not to be distressed.  I begged that she might know nothing of this undertaking on my part.

“It was not long after this when our daily meetings on the cliff came to an end.  Mild as the weather was by this time, Mrs. Nowell’s doctor had forbidden her going out any longer.  I knew that she had no maid to send out with the child, so I sent the servant up to ask her if she would trust the little one for a daily walk with me.  This she was very pleased to do, and Marian became my dear little companion every afternoon.  She had taken to me, as the phrase goes, from the very first.  She was the gentlest, most engaging child I had ever met with—­a little grave for her years, and tenderly thoughtful of others.

“One evening Mrs. Nowell sent for me.  I went up to the drawing-room immediately, and found her sitting in an easy-chair propped up by pillows, and very much changed for the worse since I had seen her last.  She told me that she had discovered the secret of my goodness to her, as she called it, from the landlady, and that she had sent for me to thank me.

“‘I can give you nothing but thanks and blessings,’ she said, ’for I am the most helpless creature in this world.  I suppose my husband will come here before I die, and will relieve you from the risk you have taken for me; but he can never repay you for your goodness.’

“I told her to give herself no trouble on my account; but I could not help saying, that I thought her husband had behaved shamefully in not coming to England to her long ere this.

“‘He knows that you are ill, I suppose?’ I said.