“I’d go any where——­do any thing to get my bread, for it comes to that.  If I went home and told father this—­if he found out why I had lost my situation, he’d turn me out of doors.  And except this check, which is owed nearly all, I haven’t one halfpenny—­I really haven’t.  Mrs. Grey.  It’s all very well for you to talk—­you in your fine house and comfortable clothes; but you don’t know what it is to be shabby, cold, miserable.  You don’t know what it is to be in dread of starving.”

“I do,” said Christian, solemnly.  It was true.

The shudder which came over her at thought of these remembered days obliterated every feeling about the girl except the desire to help her, blameworthy though she was, in some way that could not possibly injure any one else.

Suddenly she recollected that Mrs. Ferguson was in great need of some one to take care of Mr. Ferguson’s old blind mother, who lived forty miles distant from Avonsbridge.  If she spoke to her about Miss Bennett, and explained, without any special particulars, that, though unfit to be trusted with children, she might do well enough with an old woman in a quiet village, Mrs. Ferguson, whose kind-heartedness was endless, might send her there at once.

“Will you go? and I will tell nobody my reasons for dismissing you,” said Christian, as earnestly as if she had been asking instead of conferring a favor.  Her kindness touched even that bold, hard nature.

“You are very good to me; and perhaps I don’t deserve it.”

“Try to deserve it.  If I get this situation for you, will you make me one promise?”

“A dozen,”

“One is enough—­that you will give up Sir Edwin Uniacke.”

“How do you mean?”

“Don’t meet him, don’t write to him—­don’t hold any communication with him for three months.  If he wants you, let him come and ask you like an honest man.”

Miss Bennett shook her head.  “He’s a baronet, you know.”

“No matter.  An honest man and an honest woman are perfectly equal, even though one is a baronet and the other a daily governess.  And, if love is worth any thing, it will last three months; if worth nothing, it had better go.”

But even while she was speaking—­plain truths which she believed with her whole heart—­Christian felt, in this case, the bitter satire of her words.

Susan Bennett only smiled at them in a vague, uncomprehending way.  “Would you have trusted your lover—­that means Dr. Grey, I suppose—­ for three months?”

Mrs. Grey did not reply.  But her heart leaped to think how well she knew the answer.  No need to speak of it, though.  It would be almost profanity to talk to this women, who knew about as much of it as an African fetish-worshipper knows of the Eternal—­of that love which counts fidelity not by months and years; which, though it has its root in mortal life, stretches out safely and fearlessly into the life everlasting.