"It used to grow, a long bed of it, close to the kitchen wall where it
was warm, and where it bloomed before anything else." The words came
stumblingly. "Mother loved it best of all her flowers; she had all
sorts in her garden."
With a quick turn of her head she looked at me, in her face horror, in
her eyes tumultuous pain, then threw the flower from her with a wild
movement, as if her touch had blighted it. "Why don't you let me die!"
she cried. "Oh, why don't you let me die!"
I drew a chair close to the cot and sat down by it. For a while I said
nothing. Things long locked within her, long held back, were
struggling for utterance. In the days she had been with us her silence
had been unbroken, but gradually something bitter and rebellious had
died out of her face, and into it had come a haunted, hunted look, and
yet she would not talk. Until she was ready to speak we knew it was
best to say nothing to her of days that were past, or of those that
were to come.
Mrs. Mundy had known her before she came to Scarborough Square. In a
ward of one of the city's hospitals, where her baby was born, she had
found her alone, deserted, and waiting her time.
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