Mr. Parmalee paused.  My lady stood before him, ashen, white to the lips, listening with wild, wide eyes.

“Go on,” she said, almost in a whisper.

“Well, my lady,” Mr. Parmalee resumed, modestly, “I’m a pretty rough sort of a fellow, as you may see, and I hain’t never experienced religion or that, and don’t lay claim to no sort of goodness; but for all that I’ve an old mother over to home, and for her sake I couldn’t stand by and see a poor, sufferin’ feller-critter of the female persuasion and not lend a helping hand.  I nussed that there sick party by night and by day, and if it hadn’t been for that nussin’ and the little things I bought her to eat, she’d have been under the Atlantic now, though I do say it.”

My lady held out her hand, aglitter with rich rings.

“You are a better man than I took you for,” she said softly.  “I thank you with all my heart.”

Mr. Parmalee took the dainty hand, rather confusedly, in his finger-tips, held it a second, and dropped it.

“It was one night, when she thought herself dying, that she told me her story—­told me everything, my lady—­who she had been, who she was, and what she was coming across for.  My lady, nobody could be sorrier than she was then.  I pitied her, by George, more than I ever pitied any one before in my life.  She had been unhappy and remorseful for a long time, but she was in despair.  It was too late for repentance, she thought.  There was nothing for it but to go on to the dreadful end.  Sometimes, when she was almost mad, she—­well, she took to drink, you know, and he wasn’t in any way a good or kind protector to her—­Thorndyke wasn’t.”

My lady flung up both arms with a shrill scream.

“Not that name,” she cried—­“not that accursed name, if you would not drive me mad!”

“I beg your pardon!” said Mr. Parmalee; “I won’t.  Well, she heard of your father’s death—­he told her, you see—­and that completed her despair.  She took to drink worse and worse; she got out of all bounds—­sort of frantic, you see.  Twice she tried to kill herself—­once by poison, once by drowning; and both times he—­you know who I mean—­caught her and stopped her.  He hadn’t even mercy enough on her, she says, to let her die!”

“For God’s sake, don’t tell me of those horrors!” my lady cried, in agony.  “I feel as though I were going mad.”

“It is hard,” said the artist, “but I can’t help it—­it’s true, all the same.  She heard of your marriage to Sir Everard Kingsland next.  It was the last thing he ever taunted her with; for, crazed with his jeers and insults, she fled from him that night, sold all she possessed but the clothes on her back, and took passage for England.”

“To see me?” asked Harriet, hoarsely.

“To see you, my lady, but all unknown.  She had no wish to force herself upon you; she only felt that she was dying, and that if she could look on your face once before she went out of life, and see you well, and beautiful, and beloved, and happy, she could lie down in the dust at your gates and die content.