第98章

"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.