He talked of going to
the workhouse, and things like that. But it couldn't ever come to
that, could it, Marian? Wouldn't somebody help him?'
'There's not much help to be expected in this world,' answered
the girl.
Physical weariness brought her a few hours of oblivion as soon as
she had lain down, but her sleep came to an end in the early
morning, when the pressure of evil dreams forced her back to
consciousness of real sorrows and cares. A fog-veiled sky added
its weight to crush her spirit; at the hour when she usually rose
it was still all but as dark as midnight. Her mother's voice at
the door begged her to lie and rest until it grew lighter, and
she willingly complied, feeling indeed scarcely capable of
leaving her bed.
The thick black fog penetrated every corner of the house. It
could be smelt and tasted. Such an atmosphere produces low-
spirited languor even in the vigorous and hopeful; to those
wasted by suffering it is the very reek of the bottomless pit,
poisoning the soul. Her face colourless as the pillow, Marian lay
neither sleeping nor awake, in blank extremity of woe; tears now
and then ran down her cheeks, and at times her body was shaken
with a throe such as might result from anguish of the torture
chamber.
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