Then unconsciousness returned, and the village nurse gave it as
her opinion that the end was near.
Elizabeth looked round the room. Thank God the cottage did not
belong to the Squire! The bedroom was about ten feet by seven, with
a sloping thatched roof, supported by beams three centuries old. The
one window was about two feet square. The nurse pointed to it.
'The doctor said no pneumonia case could possibly recover in a room
like this. And there are dozens of them, Miss, in this village. Oh,
Mary is glad to go. She nursed her mother for years, and then her
father for years. She never had a day's pleasure, and she was as
good as gold.'
Elizabeth held the clammy, misshapen hand, pressing her lips to it
when she rose to go, as to the garment of a saint.
Then she walked quickly back through the fading spring day, her
heart torn with prayer and remorse--remorse that such a life as Mary
Wilson's should have been possible within reach of her own life and
she not know it; and passionate praying for a better world, through
and after the long anguish of the war.
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