“Be quiet and be done with it, you coarse lump!” interrupted the bed-ridden woman in so loud and authoritative a tone that the woman turned slowly and stupidly round to look at her.  “This time next week I’ll be in the Union and you’ll have no one to torment.  You can make arrangements when you like, the sooner the better.”

“All right! it can’t be too soon for me,” retorted the woman with her incessant, stupid laugh, which this time did not hide the fact that she had received a shock at this taking of affairs out of her hands.  “But perhaps you’d rather I didn’t do it since you’ve so many friends.”

“No, you needn’t bother yourself about me,” said the bed-ridden woman.  “I’ll have done with you soon.”

“Couldn’t you?” said Anne, turning to face the woman and speaking with great earnestness, and as always, when moved, with great preciseness. “Couldn’t you for this last week do your best to be considerate and kind?  A week is not a very long portion of eternity.  It is so painful to think of two people separating for ever in hatred.  You have one week left.  Could you not make the most of it?”

“It’s a week too much!” said the woman, with careless brutality.  “Are you always so fond of making long calls?” she added, staring at Anne.

Anne turned to the bed-ridden woman, saying, “On Thursday I shall be going in to market and I’ll call at the Union Infirmary and see the Matron.  I think you’ll be better looked after there and have peace and quietness.”

“It couldn’t be worse than this,” said the woman.  “I think perhaps I’ve been foolish to stay here so long.”

“I’ll see the Matron for you on Thursday,” said Anne.  “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, and thank you,” returned the sick woman, turning wearily away from her fellow-lodger and settling down to the silence and endurance in which she habitually lived.

“Good afternoon, Mrs Wright,” said Anne to the other woman as she opened the door.  The woman stared in a way meant to put Anne out of countenance, making no reply, while Anne, going outside, shut the door gently behind her.

CHAPTER XIII

For three months Anne had prayed constantly for Jane.  Living alone in an orderly and quiet house with one window open towards her Invisible Friend, she had spoken with Him of her desire for Jane’s recovery, until it appeared to her that He too must yearn as she did for this definite thing.  Elizabeth Richardson had been removed to the Infirmary and was at peace, so that Anne’s thoughts were of little else than Jane and her re-instatement in the country.  It was not the chagrin of the failure of her visit to Burton’s house which troubled her, but her helplessness.  If she went again she could do no more than plead as she had done before.  But it might be that the girl had by this time felt her need of outside friends.  It was fully three months ago.  As