On the evening of the day upon which old Wilson was expected back at
Fornside, Ralph Ray turned in at the tailor's cottage. Sim's distress
was, if possible, even greater than before. It seemed as if the gloomy
forebodings of the villagers were actually about to be realized, and
Sim's mind was really giving way. His staring eyes, his unconscious,
preoccupied manner as he tramped to and fro in his little work-room,
sitting at intervals, rising again and resuming his perambulations,
now gathering up his tools and now opening them out afresh, talking
meantime in fitful outbursts, sometimes wholly irrelevantly and
occasionally with a startling pertinency,--all this, though no more
than an excess of his customary habit, seemed to denote a mind
unstrung. The landlord had called that morning for his rent, which was
long in arrears. He must have it. Sim laughed when he told Ralph this,
but it was a shocking laugh; there was no heart in it. Ralph would
rather have heard him whimper and shuffle as he had done before.

"You shall not be homeless, Sim, if the worst comes to the worst," he
said.

"Homeless, not I!" and the little man laughed again. Ralph felt
unease. This change was not for the better. Rotha had been sitting at
the window to catch the last glimmer of daylight as she spun. It was
dusk, but not yet too dark for Ralph to see the tears standing in her
eyes. Presently she rose and went out of the room.

"Never fear that I shall be clemm'd," said Sim. "No, no," he said,
with a grin of satisfied assurance.