She paid a week’s rent in advance; bought firing and provisions; every thing she could think of to make him comfortable; and then she went to fetch him in a cab.

The sick man offered no resistance; indeed, he hardly seemed to know what she was doing with him.  She discovered the cause of this half insensibility when, in making a bundle of his few clothes, she found a package labeled “opium.”

“Don’t take it from me,” he said pitifully, “it’s the only comfort I have.”

But when he found himself in the cheerful room, with the fire blazing and the tea laid out, he woke up like a person out of a bad dream.

“Oh, Elizabeth, I’m so comfortable!”

Elizabeth could have wept.

Whether the wholesome food and drink revived him, or whether it was one of the sudden flashes of life that often occur in consumptive patients, but he seemed really better, and began to talk, telling Elizabeth about his long illness, and saying over again how very kind the druggist’s young man had been to him.

“I’m sure he’s a gentleman, though he has come down in the world; for, as he says, ’misery makes a man acquainted with strange bedfellows, and takes the nonsense out of him.’  I think so too, and if ever I get better, I don’t mean to go about the country speaking against born gentlefolks any more.  They’re much of a muchness with ourselves—­bad and good; a little of all sorts; the same flesh and blood as we are.  Aren’t they, Elizabeth?”

“I suppose so.”

“And there’s another thing I mean to do.  I mean to try and be good like you.  Many a night, when I’ve lain on that straw, and thought I was dying, I’ve remembered you and all the things you used to say to me.  You are a good woman; there never was a better.”

Elizabeth smiled, a faint rather sad smile.  For, as she was washing up the tea things, she had noticed Tom’s voice grow feebler, and his features sharper and more wan.

“I’m very tired,” he said.  “I’m afraid to go to bed, I get such wretched nights; but I think, if I lay down in my clothes, I could go to sleep.”

Elizabeth helped him to the small pallet, shook his pillow, and covered him up as if he had been a child.

“You’re very good to me,” he said, and looked up at her—­Tom’s bright, fond look of years ago.  But it passed away in a moment, and he closed his eyes, saying he was so terribly tired.

“Then I’ll bid you good-by, for I ought to have been at home by now.  You’ll take care of yourself, Tom, and I’ll come and see you again the very first hour I can be spared.  And if you want me you’ll send to me at once?  You know where?”

“I will,” said Tom.  “Its the same house, isn’t it, in Russell Square?”

“Yes.”  And they were both silent.

After a minute, Tom asked, in a troubled voice.

“Have you forgiven me?”

“Yes, Tom, quite.”

“Won’t you give me one kiss, Elizabeth?”