At the noise of her step the
girl looked up.
"Is Mr. Warlock here?" Maggie asked, but the words were choked in
her throat.
"Wot d'ye sye?" the girl asked.
Maggie repeated her question.
"Yes--'e's upstairs. Always is. Fust floor, second door on yer
left."
Maggie went up. She found the door. She knocked. There was no
answer. She pushed the door, peered through and looked in. She saw a
room with a dirty grimy window, a broken faded red sofa, a deal
table. No one there.
She entered and stood listening. A door beyond her opened and a man
came in. She knew at once that it was Martin. Her thoughts followed
one another in strange flurried inconsequence. Yes, it was Martin.
He was fatter than he had been--fat and ill. Very ill. His face was
pale, his hair, thinner than before, unbrushed. He was wearing an
old dirty blue suit with a coat that buttoned over the waistcoat
like a seaman's jacket. Yes, he was ill and fat and unkempt, but it
was Martin. At that reiterated assurance in the depths of her soul
she seemed to sink into a marvellous certain tranquillity--so
certain that she shed, as it were with a gesture, all the
unhappiness and doubt and desolation with which the last years had
burdened her.
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