Page:Gissing - Workers in the Dawn, vol. I, 1880.djvu/26

16 The visitor set down the candle hastily, and, uttering a low exclamation of horror, moved as if to call assistance. But at once he appeared to alter his purpose, and, returning to the side of the sleeper, shook him by the shoulder, calling, as he did so—

“Golding! Golding!”

The man showed no sign of returning to consciousness, but the disturbance awoke the child, who moved slowly to a sitting position, rubbed his eyes, and at length began to sob quietly, paying no attention whatever to the stranger. The latter persevered for a few minutes in his endeavours to arouse the sick man, but, finding his efforts vain, was on the point of hurrying from the room, when the door opened, and the woman who had accosted him on the stairs came in, holding in her hand a glass of something which smoked.

“The doctor’s a dre'ful long while a comin’, sir,” she said, in a wheedling sort of tone. “I thought as ‘ow a drop of somethink warm ‘ud, may be, do the poor gentleman good. Nevermind the hexpense, sir; we likes to do what little good we can in our small way, yer know.”

“He is unconscious,” replied the clergyman, whose name we may at once say was Norman. “I cannot awake him. Are you sure the messenger saw the doctor?”

“Oh, quite sure, sir. Yer know the