Page:Gissing - Workers in the Dawn, vol. I, 1880.djvu/29

Rh hollow rattle in his throat. The clergyman bent nearer to him in the hope of hearing a word, and, as he did so. Golding suddenly grasped him by the arm, and with his head and eyes made convulsive motions in the direction of the child. For a moment the grasp of his hands on Mr. Norman’s arm was fearful in its violence, then it all at once relaxed, the perpetual rattle ceased, the eyes became fixed in a steady stare at the ceiling.

The candle had burnt to the socket, and the smoke rising from it in a narrow white column filled the room with its smell. The room was quite dark save for a faint gleam which came from a bedroom window on the opposite side of the court. In the house was absolute silence. The street was too far off for any sound from such buyers and sellers as might still linger there to be heard in the recesses of Adam and Eve Court. As the clergyman stood for a few moments, irresolute in the dark, he heard the voice of a woman screaming from a window opposite, and the laugh of a drunken man reeling into a house hard by. At length he rose to his feet and left the room.

On the first landing the woman again met him with a candle in her hand.

“Has anythink ‘appened, sir? " she asked.

“He is dead,” replied Mr. Norman.

“Eh! poor fellow I You don’t ‘appen to know, sir, if he’s got any friends besides