“Good morning!” Lynda said kindly.  “Can I do anything for you?  I am sorry you had to wait.”

She concluded it was some one connected with the Saxe Home.  That was largely in her mind at the moment.

“I want to see”—­and here the strange little figure came to Lynda and held out a very dirty, crumpled piece of paper on which was written Truedale’s name and address.

“Mr. Truedale may not be home until evening,” Lynda said.  And now she thought that this must be one of the private and pet dependents of Con’s with whom she would deal very gently and tactfully.  “I wonder if you won’t tell me all about it and I will either tell Mr. Truedale or set a time for you to see him.”

Glad of any help in this hour of extremity, the stranger said: 

“I’m—­I’m Nella-Rose.  Do you know about me?”

Know about her?  Why, after the first stunning shock, she seemed to be the only thing Lynda did know about—­ever had known!  She stared at the little figure before her for what seemed an hour.  She noted the worried, pitiful child face that, screened behind the worn and care-lined features, looked forth like a pretty flower.  Then Lynda said, weakly: 

“Yes, I know about you—­all about you, Nella-Rose.”

The pitiful eyes brightened.  What Nella-Rose had been through since leaving her hills only God understood.

“I’m right glad!  And you—­you are—­”

“I’m Conning Truedale’s—­wife.”

Somehow Lynda expected this to be a devastating shock, but it was not.  Nella-Rose was past reservations or new impressions.

“I—­I reckoned so,” was all she said.

“You must sit down.  You look very tired.”  Lynda had forgotten Truedale’s possible appearance.

“I am right tired.  It’s a mighty long way from Pine Cone.  And I was so—­so frightened, but folks was certainly good and just helped me—­to here!  One old lady came to the door with me.”

“Why—­have you come, Nella-Rose?” Lynda drew her own chair close to the stranger’s and as she did so, she could but wonder, now that she was herself again, how exactly Nella-Rose seemed to fit into the scene.  She was like a recurrence—­like some one who had played her part before—­or were the scene and Nella-Rose but the materialization of something Lynda had always expected, always dreaded, but which she had always known must come some day?  She was prepared now—­terribly prepared!  Everything depended upon her management of the crucial moments.  Her kindness did not desert her, nor her merciful justice, but she meant to shield Truedale with her life—­hers and Nella-Rose’s, if necessary.  “Why—­have you—­come?” she asked again, and Nella-Rose, taking for granted that this pale, strange woman did know all about her—­knew everything and every one pertaining to her—­fixed her sweet eyes, tear-filled but not overflowing, upon her face.

“I want—­to tell him that I’m right sorry I hated him.  I—­I didn’t know until Bill Trim died.  I want to ask him to—­to forgive me, and—­then I can go back.”