She must have water! She got out of bed with difficulty, then for a whole hour sat on the edge of it motionless, unsure that she was not in hell. At last she wept--acrid tears, for very misery. She rose, took off her satin and lace, put on a cotton gown, and was once more a decent-looking poor body--except as to her glowing face and burning eyes, which to bathe she had nothing but tears. Again she sat down, and for a space did nothing, only suffered in ignominy.
At last life began to revive a little. She rose and moved about the room, staring at the things in it as a ghost might stare at the grave-clothes on its abandoned body. There on the table lay her keys; and what was that under them?--A letter addressed to her. She opened it, and found five pound-notes, with these words: "I promise to pay to Mrs. Croale five pounds monthly, for nine months to come.
Gilbert Galbraith." She wept again. He would never speak to her more! She had lost him at last--her only friend!--her sole link to God and goodness and the kingdom of heaven!--lost him for ever!
The day went on, cold and foggy without, colder and drearier within.
Sick and faint and disgusted, the poor heart had no atmosphere to beat in save an infinite sense of failure and lost opportunity. She had fuel enough in the room to make a little fire, and at length had summoned resolve sufficient for the fetching of water from the street-pump. She went to the cupboard to get a jug: she could not carry a pailful. There in the corner stood her demon-friend! her own old familiar, the black bottle! as if he had been patiently waiting for her all the long dreary time she had been away! With a flash of fierce joy she remembered she had left it half-full. She caught it up, and held it between her and the fading light of the misty window: it was half-full still!--One glass--a hair of the dog--would set her free from faintness and sickness, disgust and misery! There was no one to find fault with her now! She could do as she liked--there was no one to care!--nothing to take fire!--She set the bottle on the table, because her hand shook, and went again to the cupboard to get a glass. On the way--borne upward on some heavenly current from the deeps of her soul, the face of Gibbie, sorrowful because loving, like the face of the Son of Man, met her.
She turned, seized the bottle, and would have dashed it on the hearthstone, but that a sudden resolve arrested her lifted arm:
Gibbie should see! She would be strong! That bottle should stand on that shelf until the hour when she could show it him and say, "See the proof of my victory!" She drove the cork fiercely in.
When its top was level with the neck, she set the bottle back in its place, and from that hour it stood there, a temptation, a ceaseless warning, the monument of a broken but reparable vow, a pledge of hope. It may not have been a prudent measure. To a weak nature it would have involved certain ruin. But there are natures that do better under difficulty; there are many such. And with that fiend-like shape in her cupboard the one ambition of Mistress Croale's life was henceforth inextricably bound up: she would turn that bottle into a witness for her against the judgment she had deserved. Close by the cupboard door, like a kite or an owl nailed up against a barn, she hung her soiled and dishonoured satin gown;and the dusk having now gathered, took the jug, and fetched herself water. Then, having set her kettle on the fire, she went out with her basket, and bought bread, and butter. After a good cup of tea and some nice toast, she went to bed again, much easier both in mind and body, and slept.
In the morning she went to the market, opened her shop, and waited for customers. Pleasure and surprise at her reappearance brought the old ones quickly back. She was friendly and helpful to them as before; but the slightest approach to inquiry as to where she had been or what she had been doing, she met with simple obstinate silence. Gibbie's bounty and her faithful abstinence enabled her to add to her stock and extend her trade. By and by she had the command of a little money; and when in the late autumn there came a time of scarcity and disease, she went about among the poor like a disciple of Sir Gibbie. Some said that, from her knowledge of their ways, from her judgment, and by her personal ministration of what, for her means, she gave more bountifully than any, she did more to hearten their endurance, than all the ladies together who administered money subscribed. It came to Sir Gibbie's ears, and rejoiced his heart: his old friend was on the King's highway still!
In the mean time she saw nothing of him. Not once did he pass her shop, where often her mental, and not unfrequently her bodily, attitude was that of a watching lover. The second day, indeed, she saw him at a little distance, and sorely her heart smote her, for one of his hands was in a sling; but he crossed to the other side, plainly to avoid her. She was none the less sure, however, that when she asked him he would forgive her; and ask him she would, as soon as she had satisfactory proof of repentance to show him.
