But during the worst depths of the next London
winter, when gray fog gathered thick in the purlieus of Marylebone,
and shivering gusts groaned at the street corners, poor little
Dolly caught whooping-cough badly. On top of the whooping-cough
came an attack of bronchitis; and on top of the bronchitis a
serious throat trouble. Herminia sat up night after night, nursing
her child, and neglecting the work on which both depended for
subsistence. Week by week things grew worse and worse; and Sir
Anthony, kept duly informed by the landlady, waited and watched,
and bided his time in silence. At last the case became desperate.
Herminia had no money left to pay her bill or buy food; and one
string to her bow after another broke down in journalism. Her
place as the weekly lady's-letter writer to an illustrated paper
passed on to a substitute; blank poverty stared her in the face,
inevitable. When it came to pawning the type-writer, as the
landlady reported, Sir Anthony smiled a grim smile to himself. The
moment for action had now arrived.
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