arrival the foredoomed end of the flimsy false pretenses and the cruel delays had come.
'A friend of yours, my dear?'
'Yes, Lady Janet.'
'Am I acquainted with her?'
'I think not, Lady Janet.'
'You appear to be agitated. Does your visitor bring bad news? Is there anything that I can do for you?'
'You can add—immeasurably add, madam—to all your past kindness, if you will only bear with me and forgive me.'
'Bear with you and forgive you? I don't understand.'
'I will try to explain. Whatever else you may think of me, Lady Janet, for God's sake don't think me ungrateful!'
Lady Janet held up her hand for silence.
'I dislike explanations,' she said, sharply. 'Nobody ought to know that better than you. Perhaps the lady's letter will explain for you. Why have you not looked at it yet?'
'I am in great trouble, madam, as you noticed just now—'
'Have you any objection to my knowing who your visitor is?'
'No, Lady Janet.'
'Let me look at her card, then.'
Mercy gave the matron's card to Lady Janet, as she had given the matron's telegram to Horace.
Lady Janet read the name on the card—considered—decided that it was a name quite unknown to her—and looked next at the address: 'Western District Refuge, Milburn Road.'
'A lady connected with a Refuge?' she said, speaking to herself; 'and calling here by appointment—if I remember the servant's message? A strange time to choose, if she has come for a subscription!'
She paused. Her brow contracted; her face hardened. A word from her would now have brought the interview to its inevitable end, and she refused to speak the word. To the last moment she persisted in ignoring the truth! Placing the card on the couch at her side, she pointed with her long yellow-white forefinger to the printed letter lying side by side with her own letter on Mercy's lap.
'Do you mean to read it, or not?' she asked.
Mercy lifted her eyes, fast filling with tears, to Lady Janet's face.
'May I beg that your ladyship will read it for me?' she said—and placed the matron's letter in Lady Janet's hand.
It was a printed circular announcing a new development in the charitable work of the Refuge. Subscribers were informed that it had been decided to extend the shelter and the training of the institution (thus far devoted to fallen women alone) so as to include destitute and helpless children found wandering in the streets. The question of the number of children to be thus rescued and protected was left dependent, as a matter of course, on the bounty of the friends of the Refuge, the cost of the maintenance of each child being stated at the lowest possible rate. A list of influential persons who had increased their subscriptions so as to cover the cost, and a brief statement of the progress already made with the new work, completed the appeal, and brought the circular to its end.
The lines traced in pencil (in the matron's handwriting) followed on the blank page.
'Your letter tells me, my dear, that you would like—remembering your own childhood—to be employed when you return among us in saving other poor children left helpless on the world. Our circular will inform you that I am able to meet your wishes. My first errand this evening in your neighborhood was to take charge of a poor child—a little girl—who stands sadly in need of our care. I have ventured to bring her with me, thinking she might help to reconcile you to the coming change in your life. You will find us both waiting to go back with you to the old home. I write this instead of saying it, hearing from the servant that you are not alone, and being unwilling to intrude myself, as a stranger, on the lady of the house.'
Lady Janet read the penciled lines, as she had read the printed sentences, aloud. Without a word of comment she laid the letter where she had laid the card; and, rising from her seat, stood for a moment in stern silence, looking at Mercy. The sudden change in her which the letter had produced—quietly as it had taken place—was terrible to see. On the frowning brow, in the flashing eyes, on the hardened lips, outraged love and outraged pride looked down on the lost woman, and said, as if in words, You have roused us at last.
'If that letter means anything,' she said, 'it means you are about to leave my house. There can be but one reason for your taking such a step as that.'
'It is the only atonement I can make, madam.'
'I see another letter on your lap. Is it my letter?'
'Yes.'
'Have you read it?'
'I have read it.'
'Have you seen Horace Holmcroft?'
'Yes.'
'Have you told Horace Holmcroft—'
'Oh, Lady Janet—'
'Don't interrupt me. Have you told Horace Holmcroft what my letter positively forbade you to communicate,
