Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/162

152 waiting for a passage, which she at last got in a small trading smack, she arrived at Southampton—ill. Before she was able to write her baby was born; and before her husband's answer came, she had been obliged to pawn some clothes and trinkets. He desired her to travel to London, where he would meet her at the Belle Sauvage, adding that he was himself in distress and unable to come to her: when once she was in London they would take ship and quit the country. Arrived at the Belle Sauvage, the poor thing waited three days in vain for her husband: on the fourth a letter came in a strange hand, saying that in his last moments he had desired this letter to be written to inform her of his death, and recommend her to return to her friends. She could choose no other course, but she had soon been reduced to walking, that she might save her pence to buy bread with; and on the evening when she made her appeal to Mr Lyon, she had pawned the last thing, over and above needful clothing, that she could persuade herself to part with. The things she had not borne to part with, were her marriage-ring and a locket containing her husband's hair, and bearing his baptismal name. This locket, she said, exactly resembled one worn by her husband on his watch-chain, only that