Page 602 - sons-and-lovers

said, when the men were going back to work.
‘Don’t you bother about that, my dear,’ said Annie.
One night Annie and Paul were alone. Nurse was up-
stairs.
‘She’ll live over Christmas,’ said Annie. They were both
full of horror. ‘She won’t,’ he replied grimly. ‘I s’ll give her
morphia.’
‘Which?’ said Annie.
‘All that came from Sheffield,’ said Paul.
‘Ay—do!’ said Annie.
The next day he was painting in the bedroom. She seemed
to be asleep. He stepped softly backwards and forwards at
his painting. Suddenly her small voice wailed:
‘Don’t walk about, Paul.’
He looked round. Her eyes, like dark bubbles in her face,
were looking at him.
‘No, my dear,’ he said gently. Another fibre seemed to
snap in his heart.
That evening he got all the morphia pills there were, and
took them downstairs. Carefully he crushed them to pow-
der.
‘What are you doing?’ said Annie.
‘I s’ll put ‘em in her night milk.’
Then they both laughed together like two conspiring
children. On top of all their horror flicked this little sanity.
Nurse did not come that night to settle Mrs. Morel down.
Paul went up with the hot milk in a feeding-cup. It was nine
o’clock.
She was reared up in bed, and he put the feeding-cup

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