A succession of swoons followed. She never rallied. She was
then lying dead in Primrose Court.'
'And what then? Answer me quickly.'
'She asked me to give her money that her daughter might be buried
respectably and not by the parish. I told her it was all
hallucination about the girl being her daughter, and that a spiritual
body could not be buried, but she seemed so genuinely distressed that
I gave her the money.'
'Spiritual body! Hallucination!' I said. 'I heard her voice in the
London streets, and she was seen selling baskets at the theatre door.
Where shall I find the house?'
'It is of no use for you to go there,' he said.
'Nothing shall prevent my going at once.' A feverish yearning had
come upon me to see the body.
'If you _will_ go,' said Wilderspin, 'it is No. 2 Primrose Court,
Great Queen Street, Holborn.
II
I hurried out of the house, and soon finding a cab I drove to Great
Queen Street.
My soul had passed now into another torture-chamber. It was being
torn between two warring, maddening forces--the passionate desire to
see her body, and the shrinking dread of undergoing the ordeal.
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