“And then I told you that I believed in you as I believed in little else, in this world or the next; and I said, that, if in my hour of shame and outcasting, I could implore the help of any human being, I would come to you before all others.  I have come.  You thought me raving then, and pitied me, because you did not understand.  Presently you will understand, and you will still pity me,—­but with a difference.

“I fled away that very night, you recollect,—­fled from my self-contempt, from the sickening scorn I felt for them,—­for him.”

There was agony in the effort with which she uttered that last word.  She named no names, but, with a sort of desperation, raised her head and looked Miss Wimple in the face; in the quick, sensitive glances they interchanged at that moment the omission was supplied.

“Though my flight was premeditated, I took with me no clothes save those I wore; but I had concealed on my person every jewel and trinket I possessed.  With these,—­for I readily converted them into money,—­I purchased a safe asylum in an obscure but decent family, whose poverty did not afford them the indulgence of a scrupulous fastidiousness or impertinent curiosity; it was enough for their straitened conscience that I had the manners and the purse of a lady, —­they asked no questions which might cost them a profitable boarder, the only one they could accommodate in their poor way.  I had no fear that any hue-and-cry would be raised for me; I had left behind me two who would prevent that,—­in that, my worst foes were my best friends.  If I had any relatives who cared for me enough to pursue me, I rejoiced in at least one sister on whose cunning, if not good sense, I could rely, to convince them of the futility of such efforts,—­one friend whose fears would be ingenious and busy to put the best-laid chase at fault.

“So I lay concealed and safe till the time came when I had to purchase pity, help, and precious secrecy.  My discreet hosts could furnish those extras; but they were poor, and such luxuries are expensive in New York;—­it was not long before my last dollar was gone.  I had been ill,—­ill, Miss Wimple,—­and every way crippled; I could not, if the work had offered itself to me, have earned more then.  My last trinket was gone; I had pawned whatever I could spare from the hard exigencies of living; for I am no coward,—­I did not wish to die,—­I had challenged my fate, and would meet it.  I had even changed with the women of the house the silk dress I wore, and my fine linen, for the mean rags you cleansed me of last night, —­that they might pay themselves so; and when all was expended, and the last trick tried that pride, honor, and modesty could wink at, I came away in the night, leaving no unsettled scores behind me.  But I saw my own resources sinking fast; I knew I must presently be debtor to some one for protection, aid, and counsel.  I remembered you,—­and that I had said I could beg of none but you; therefore I am here.