Though her breathing had become noiseless again, Mrs. Maldon still slept.  She had wakened only once since the previous night.  She lay calm and dignified in slumber—­an old and devastated woman, with that disconcerting resemblance to a corpse shown by all aged people asleep, but yet with little sign of positive illness save the slight distortion of her features caused by the original attack.  Rachel sat idle, prim, in vague reflection, at intervals smoothing her petticoat, or giving a faint cough, or gazing at the mild blue September sky.  She might have been reading a book, but she was not by choice a reader.  She had the rare capacity of merely existing.  Her thoughts flitted to and fro, now resting on Mrs. Maldon with solemnity, now on Mrs. Tams with amused benevolence, now on old Batchgrew with lofty disgust, and now on Louis Fores with unquiet curiosity and delicious apprehension.

She gave a little shudder of fright and instantly controlled it—­Mrs. Maldon, instead of being asleep, was looking at her.  She rose and went to the bedside and stood over the sick woman, by the pillow, benignly, asking with her eyes what desire of the sufferer’s she might fulfil.  And Mrs. Maldon looked up at her with another benignity.  And they both smiled.

“You’ve slept very well,” said Rachel softly.

Mrs. Maldon, continuing to smile, gave a scarcely perceptible affirmative movement of the head.

“Will you have some of your Revalenta?  I’ve only got to warm it, here.  Everything’s ready.”

“Nothing, thank you, dear,” said Mrs. Maldon, in a firm, matter-of-fact voice.

The doctor had left word that food was not to be forced on her.

“Do you feel better?”

Mrs. Maldon answered, in a peculiar tone—­

“My dear, I shall never feel any better than I do now.”

“Oh, you mustn’t talk like that!” said Rachel in gay protest.

“I want to talk to you, Rachel,” said Mrs. Maldon, once more reassuringly matter-of-fact.  “Sit down there.”

Rachel obediently perched herself on the bed, and bent her head.  And her face, which was now much closer to Mrs. Maldon’s, expressed the gravity which Mrs. Maldon would wish, and also the affectionate condescension of youth towards age, and of health towards infirmity.  And as almost unconsciously she exulted in her own youth, and strength, delicate little poniards of tragic grief for Mrs. Maldon’s helpless and withered senility seemed to stab through that personal pride.  The shiny, veined right hand of the old woman emerged from under the bedclothes and closed with hot, fragile grasp on Rachel’s hand.

Within the impeccable orderliness of the bedroom was silence; and beyond was the vast Sunday afternoon silence of the district, producing the sensation of surcease, re-creating the impressive illusion of religion even out of the brutish irreligion that was bewailed from pulpits to empty pews in all the temples of all the Five Towns.  Only the smoke waving slowly through the clean-washed sky from a few high chimneys over miles of deserted manufactories made a link between Saturday and Monday.