But this kindness relieved Letty only a little, for the rent past and the rent to come hung upon her like a cloak of lead.
Nor was even debt the worst that now oppressed her.

For, possibly from the fall, but more from the prolonged want of suitable nourishment and wise treatment, after that terrible night, the baby grew worse.

Many were the tears the sleepless mother shed over the sallow face and wasted limbs of her slumbering treasure--her one antidote to countless sorrows; and many were the foolish means she tried to restore his sinking vitality.
Mary had written to her, and she had written to Mary; but she had said nothing of the straits to which she was reduced; that would have been to bring blame upon Tom.

But Mary, with her fine human instinct, felt that things must be going worse with her than before; and, when she found that her return was indefinitely postponed by Mr.Redmain's illness, she ventured at last in her anxiety upon a daring measure: she wrote to Mr.Wardour, telling him she had reason to fear things were not going well with Letty Helmer, and suggesting, in the gentlest way, whether it might not now be time to let bygones be bygones, and make some inquiry concerning her.
To this letter Godfrey returned no answer.

For all her denial, he had never ceased to believe that Mary had been Letty's accomplice throughout that miserable affair; and the very name--the Letty and the Helmer--stung him to the quick.