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The Case of Richard Meynell by Mrs. Humphry Ward
page 31 of 585 (05%)
He spoke gently, but with a quiet authority.

The woman in the doorway shook her head. She was thin and narrow-chested.
Her hair was already gray, though she could not have been more than
thirty-five, and youth and comeliness had been long since battered
from her face, partly by misery of mind, partly by direct ill usage of
which there were evident traces. She looked steadily at the Rector.

"I'm not going," she said. "He's nowt to me. But I'd like to know what
the doctor was thinkin' of him."

"The doctor thinks he may live through to-night and to-morrow night--not
much more. He is your husband, Mrs. Bateson, and whatever you have
against him, you'll be very sorry afterward if you don't give him help
and comfort in his death. Come up now, I beg of you, and watch with me.
He might die at any moment."

And Meynell put out his hand kindly toward the woman standing in the
shadow, as though to lead her.

But she stepped backward.

"I know what I'm about," she said, breathing quick. "He made a fule o' me
wi' that wanton Lizzie Short, and he near killt me the last morning afore
he went. And I'd been a good wife to him for fifteen year, and never
a word between us till that huzzy came along. And she's got a child by
him, and he must go and throw it in my face that I'd never given him one.
And he struck and cursed me that last morning--he wished me dead, he
said. And I sat and prayed God to punish him. An' He did. The roof came
down on him. And now he mun die. I've done wi' him--and she's done wi'
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