She was evidently a district Bible-reader, but, although perceiving that she had entered a house where she was not needed, she advanced as far as the bed and looked down upon it with a passion of tenderness and pity depicted on her face.
'Bless you, mum, he ain't suff'ring,' said the apothecary.
'I was thinking of his soul, not of his body,' she said.

'I was wondering if he had been prepared to meet his Creator.' 'Where do you suppose his soul is ?' asked Skelton curiously.

He asked the question in all reverence; she was not a lady apparently, only a working woman, but there was about her the strong majesty of a noble life.
'He is not dead yet,' she replied with evident astonishment.
'Lor, mum,' said the apothecary, 'his brain ain't in working order just at present, and as for his spirit apart from his body, that's an unknown quantity we scientific men don't deal in.' She looked at them both with a look of indescribable compassion, and went away.

Skelton would fain have followed the woman out into the sunny street, but he remained to pay that courtesy which was due to the brusque good nature of his companion.
After examining the room and finding nothing more of interest, he went and talked over the physical circumstances of the case with the parish doctor.

He did not gain much information about the patient's diseased body, and naturally none whatever concerning the whereabouts of his soul.