Long
black roaches scurried out of her way as she descended the stairs. In the
hall below the single gas-jet flared in the draught, causing ghostly
shadows to leap out of corners and then skulk fearfully back again. Nance
was not afraid, but a sudden sick loathing filled her. Was she never
going to be able to get away from it all? Was that long arm of duty going
to stretch out and find her wherever she went, and drag her back to this
noisome spot? Were all her dreams and ambitions to die, as they had been
born, in Calvary Alley?
Mrs. Smelts had been moved into an empty room across the hall from her
own crowded quarters, and as Nance pushed open the door, she lifted a
warning hand and beckoned.
"Shut it," she said in a hoarse whisper. "I don't want nobody to hear
what I got to tell you."
"Can't it wait, Mrs. Smelts?" asked Nance, with a pitying hand on the
feverish brow across which a long white scar extended.
"No. They're goin' to take me away in the mornin'. I heard 'em say
so. It's about Birdie, Nance, I want to tell you. They've had to
lock her up."
"It's the fever makes you think that, Mrs. Smelts. You let me sponge you
off a bit."
"No, no, not yet. She's crazy, I tell you! She went out of her head last
January when the baby come. Dan's kept it to hisself all this time, but
now he's had to send her to the asylum."
"Who told you?"
"Dan did. He wrote me when he sent me the last money. I got his
letter here under my pillow.
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