"The prediction might have proved true--I might never have committed the errors and endured the sufferings of after years--if I had fallen ill in another house.
"But it was my good, or my evil, fortune--I dare not say which--to have interested in myself and my sorrows an actress at a suburban theatre, who occupied the room under mine. Except when her stage duties took her away for two or three hours in the evening, this n.o.ble creature never left my bedside. Ill as she could afford it, her purse paid my inevitable expenses while I lay helpless. The landlady, moved by her example, accepted half the weekly rent of my room. The doctor, with the Christian kindness of his profession, would take no fees. All that the tenderest care could accomplish was lavished on me; my youth and my const.i.tution did the rest. I struggled back to life--and then I took up my needle again.
"It may surprise you that I should have failed (having an actress for my dearest friend) to use the means of introduction thus offered to me to try the stage--especially as my childish training had given me, in some small degree, a familiarity with the Art.
"I had only one motive for shrinking from an appearance at the theatre--but it was strong enough to induce me to submit to any alternative that remained, no matter how hopeless it might be. If I showed myself on the public stage, my discovery by the man from whom I had escaped would be only a question of time. I knew him to be habitually a play-goer and a subscriber to a theatrical newspaper. I had even heard him speak of the theatre to which my friend was attached, and compare it advantageously with places of amus.e.m.e.nt of far higher pretensions. Sooner or later, if I joined the company he would be certain to go and see "the new actress." The bare thought of it reconciled me to returning to my needle. Before I was strong enough to endure the atmosphere of the crowded workroom I obtained permission, as a favor, to resume my occupation at home.
"Surely my choice was the choice of a virtuous girl? And yet the day when I returned to my needle was the fatal day of my life.
"I had now not only to provide for the wants of the pa.s.sing hour--I had my debts to pay. It was only to be done by toiling harder than ever, and by living more poorly than ever. I soon paid the penalty, in my weakened state, of leading such a life as this. One evening my head turned suddenly giddy; my heart throbbed frightfully. I managed to open the window, and to let the fresh air into the room, and I felt better. But I was not sufficiently recovered to be able to thread my needle. I thought to myself, "If I go out for half an hour, a little exercise may put me right again." I had not, as I suppose, been out more than ten minutes when the attack from which I had suffered in my room was renewed. There was no shop near in which I could take refuge. I tried to ring the bell of the nearest house door. Before I could reach it I fainted in the street.
"How long hunger and weakness left me at the mercy of the first stranger who might pa.s.s by, it is impossible for me to say.
"When I partially recovered my senses I was conscious of being under shelter somewhere, and of having a wine-gla.s.s containing some cordial drink held to my lips by a man. I managed to swallow--I don"t know how little, or how much. The stimulant had a very strange effect on me.
Reviving me at first, it ended in stupefying me. I lost my senses once more.
"When I next recovered myself, the day was breaking. I was in a bed in a strange room. A nameless terror seized me. I called out. Three or four women came in, whose faces betrayed, even to my inexperienced eyes, the shameless infamy of their lives. I started up in the bed. I implored them to tell me where I was, and what had happened--
"Spare me! I can say no more. Not long since you heard Miss Roseberry call me an outcast from the streets. Now you know--as G.o.d is my judge I am speaking the truth!--now you know what made me an outcast, and in what measure I deserved my disgrace."
Her voice faltered, her resolution failed her, for the first time.
"Give me a few minutes," she said, in low, pleading tones. "If I try to go on now, I am afraid I shall cry."
She took the chair which Julian had placed for her, turning her face aside so that neither of the men could see it. One of her hands was pressed over her bosom, the other hung listlessly at her side.
Julian rose from the place that he had occupied. Horace neither moved nor spoke. His head was on his breast: the traces of tears on his cheeks owned mutely that she had touched his heart. Would he forgive her?
Julian pa.s.sed on, and approached Mercy"s chair.
In silence he took the hand which hung at her side. In silence he lifted it to his lips and kissed it, as her brother might have kissed it. She started, but she never looked up. Some strange fear of discovery seemed to possess her. "Horace?" she whispered, timidly. Julian made no reply.
He went back to his place, and allowed her to think it was Horace.
The sacrifice was immense enough--feeling toward her as he felt--to be worthy of the man who made it.
A few minutes had been all she asked for. In a few minutes she turned toward them again. Her sweet voice was steady once more; her eyes rested softly on Horace as she went on.
"What was it possible for a friendless girl in my position to do, when the full knowledge of the outrage had been revealed to me?
"If I had possessed near and dear relatives to protect and advise me, the wretches into whose hands I had fallen might have felt the penalty of the law. I knew no more of the formalities which set the law in motion than a child. But I had another alternative (you will say).
Charitable societies would have received me and helped me, if I had stated my case to them. I knew no more of the charitable societies than I knew of the law. At least, then, I might have gone back to the honest people among whom I had lived? When I received my freedom, after the interval of some days, I was ashamed to go back to the honest people.
Helplessly and hopelessly, without sin or choice of mine, I drifted, as thousands of other women have drifted, into the life which set a mark on me for the rest of my days.
"Are you surprised at the ignorance which this confession reveals?
"You, who have your solicitors to inform you of legal remedies and your newspapers, circulars, and active friends to sound the praises of charitable inst.i.tutions continually in your ears--you, who possess these advantages, have no idea of the outer world of ignorance in which your lost fellow-creatures live. They know nothing (unless they are rogues accustomed to prey on society) of your benevolent schemes to help them.
The purpose of public charities, and the way to discover and apply to them, ought to be posted at the corner of every street. What do we know of public dinners and eloquent sermons and neatly printed circulars?
Every now and then the ease of some forlorn creature (generally of a woman) who has committed suicide, within five minutes" walk, perhaps, of an inst.i.tution which would have opened its doors to her, appears in the newspapers, shocks you dreadfully, and is then forgotten again. Take as much pains to make charities and asylums known among the people without money as are taken to make a new play, a new journal, or a new medicine known among the people with money and you will save many a lost creature who is perishing now.
"You will forgive and understand me if I say no more of this period of my life. Let me pa.s.s to the new incident in my career which brought me for the second time before the public notice in a court of law.
"Sad as my experience has been, it has not taught me to think ill of human nature. I had found kind hearts to feel for me in my former troubles; and I had friends--faithful, self-denying, generous friends--among my sisters in adversity now. One of these poor women (she has gone, I am glad to think, from the world that used her so hardly) especially attracted my sympathies. She was the gentlest, the most unselfish creature I have ever met with. We lived together like sisters.
More than once in the dark hours when the thought of self-destruction comes to a desperate woman, the image of my poor devoted friend, left to suffer alone, rose in my mind and restrained me. You will hardly understand it, but even we had our happy days. When she or I had a few shillings to spare, we used to offer one another little presents, and enjoy our simple pleasure in giving and receiving as keenly as if we had been the most reputable women living.
"One day I took my friend into a shop to buy her a ribbon--only a bow for her dress. She was to choose it, and I was to pay for it, and it was to be the prettiest ribbon that money could buy.
"The shop was full; we had to wait a little before we could be served.
"Next to me, as I stood at the counter with my companion, was a gaudily-dressed woman, looking at some handkerchiefs. The handkerchiefs were finely embroidered, but the smart lady was hard to please. She tumbled them up disdainfully in a heap, and asked for other specimens from the stock in the shop. The man, in clearing the handkerchiefs out of the way, suddenly missed one. He was quite sure of it, from a peculiarity in the embroidery which made the handkerchief especially noticeable. I was poorly dressed, and I was close to the handkerchiefs.
After one look at me he shouted to the superintendent: "Shut the door!
There is a thief in the shop!"
"The door was closed; the lost handkerchief was vainly sought for on the counter and on the floor. A robbery had been committed; and I was accused of being the thief.
"I will say nothing of what I felt--I will only tell you what happened.
"I was searched, and the handkerchief was discovered on me. The woman who had stood next to me, on finding herself threatened with discovery, had no doubt contrived to slip the stolen handkerchief into my pocket.
Only an accomplished thief could have escaped detection in that way without my knowledge. It was useless, in the face of the facts, to declare my innocence. I had no character to appeal to. My friend tried to speak for me; but what was she? Only a lost woman like myself. My landlady"s evidence in favor of my honesty produced no effect; it was against her that she let lodgings to people in my position. I was prosecuted, and found guilty. The tale of my disgrace is now complete, Mr. Holmcroft. No matter whether I was innocent or not, the shame of it remains--I have been imprisoned for theft.
"The matron of the prison was the next person who took an interest in me. She reported favorably of my behavior to the authorities and when I had served my time (as the phrase was among us) she gave me a letter to the kind friend and guardian of my later years--to the lady who is coming here to take me back with her to the Refuge.
"From this time the story of my life is little more than the story of a woman"s vain efforts to recover her lost place in the world.
"The matron, on receiving me into the Refuge, frankly acknowledged that there were terrible obstacles in my way. But she saw that I was sincere, and she felt a good woman"s sympathy and compa.s.sion for me. On my side, I did not shrink from beginning the slow and weary journey back again to a reputable life from the humblest starting-point--from domestic service. After first earning my new character in the Refuge, I obtained a trial in a respectable house. I worked hard, and worked uncomplainingly; but my mother"s fatal legacy was against me from the first. My personal appearance excited remark; my manners and habits were not the manners and habits of the women among whom my lot was cast. I tried one place after another--always with the same results. Suspicion and jealousy I could endure; but I was defenseless when curiosity a.s.sailed me in its turn. Sooner or later inquiry led to discovery.
Sometimes the servants threatened to give warning in a body--and I was obliged to go. Sometimes, where there was a young man in the family, scandal pointed at me and at him--and again I was obliged to go. If you care to know it, Miss Roseberry can tell you the story of those sad days. I confided it to her on the memorable night when we met in the French cottage; I have no heart repeat it now. After a while I wearied of the hopeless struggle. Despair laid its hold on me--I lost all hope in the mercy of G.o.d. More than once I walked to one or other of the bridges, and looked over the parapet at the river, and said to myself "Other women have done it: why shouldn"t I?"
"You saved me at that time, Mr. Gray--as you have saved me since. I was one of your congregation when you preached in the chapel of the Refuge You reconciled others besides me to our hard pilgrimage. In their name and in mine, sir, I thank you.
"I forget how long it was after the bright day when you comforted and sustained us that the war broke out between France and Germany. But I can never forget the evening when the matron sent for me into her own room and said, "My dear, your life here is a wasted life. If you have courage enough left to try it, I can give you another chance."
"I pa.s.sed through a month of probation in a London hospital. A week after that I wore the red cross of the Geneva Convention--I was appointed nurse in a French ambulance. When you first saw me, Mr.
Holmcroft, I still had my nurse"s dress on, hidden from you and from everybody under a gray cloak.
"You know what the next event was; you know how I entered this house.
"I have not tried to make the worst of my trials and troubles in telling you what my life has been. I have honestly described it for what it was when I met with Miss Roseberry--a life without hope. May you never know the temptation that tried me when the sh.e.l.l struck its victim in the French cottage! There she lay--dead! _Her_ name was untainted. _Her_ future promised me the reward which had been denied to the honest efforts of a penitent woman. My lost place in the world was offered back to me on the one condition that I stooped to win it by a fraud. I had no prospect to look forward to; I had no friend near to advise me and to save me; the fairest years of my womanhood had been wasted in the vain struggle to recover my good name. Such was my position when the possibility of personating Miss Roseberry first forced itself on my mind. Impulsively, recklessly--wickedly, if you like--I seized the opportunity, and let you pa.s.s me through the German lines under Miss Roseberry"s name. Arrived in England, having had time to reflect, I made my first and last effort to draw back before it was too late. I went to the Refuge, and stopped on the opposite side of the street, looking at it. The old hopeless life of irretrievable disgrace confronted me as I fixed my eyes on the familiar door; the horror of returning to that life was more than I could force myself to endure. An empty cab pa.s.sed me at the moment. The driver held up his hand. In sheer despair I stopped him, and when he said "Where to?" in sheer despair again I answered, "Mablethorpe House."
"Of what I have suffered in secret since my own successful deception established me under Lady Janet"s care I shall say nothing. Many things which must have surprised you in my conduct are made plain to you by this time. You must have noticed long since that I was not a happy woman. Now you know why.
"My confession is made; my conscience has spoken at last. You are released from your promise to me--you are free. Thank Mr. Julian Gray if I stand here self-accused of the offense, that I have committed, before the man whom I have wronged."
CHAPTER XXVIII. SENTENCE IS p.r.o.nOUNCED ON HER.
IT was done. The last tones of her voice died away in silence.
Her eyes still rested on Horace. After hearing what he had heard could he resist that gentle, pleading look? Would he forgive her? A while since Julian had seen tears on his cheeks, and had believed that he felt for her. Why was he now silent? Was it possible that he only felt for himself?