’I am sorry to hear it, Emily.  Let us hope he will soon have another chance.’

’It’s not his turn, Miss, to be recommended when the next applications come to the couriers’ office.  You see, there are so many of them out of employment just now.  If he could be privately recommended—­’ She stopped, and left the unfinished sentence to speak for itself.

Agnes understood her directly.  ‘You want my recommendation,’ she rejoined.  ‘Why couldn’t you say so at once?’

Emily blushed.  ‘It would be such a chance for my husband,’ she answered confusedly.  ’A letter, inquiring for a good courier (a six months’ engagement, Miss!) came to the office this morning.  It’s another man’s turn to be chosen—­and the secretary will recommend him.  If my husband could only send his testimonials by the same post—­with just a word in your name, Miss—­it might turn the scale, as they say.  A private recommendation between gentlefolks goes so far.’  She stopped again, and sighed again, and looked down at the carpet, as if she had some private reason for feeling a little ashamed of herself.

Agnes began to be rather weary of the persistent tone of mystery in which her visitor spoke.  ’If you want my interest with any friend of mine,’ she said, ‘why can’t you tell me the name?’

The courier’s wife began to cry.  ‘I’m ashamed to tell you, Miss.’

For the first time, Agnes spoke sharply.  ’Nonsense, Emily!  Tell me the name directly—­or drop the subject—­whichever you like best.’

Emily made a last desperate effort.  She wrung her handkerchief hard in her lap, and let off the name as if she had been letting off a loaded gun:—­’Lord Montbarry!’

Agnes rose and looked at her.

‘You have disappointed me,’ she said very quietly, but with a look which the courier’s wife had never seen in her face before.  ’Knowing what you know, you ought to be aware that it is impossible for me to communicate with Lord Montbarry.  I always supposed you had some delicacy of feeling.  I am sorry to find that I have been mistaken.’

Weak as she was, Emily had spirit enough to feel the reproof.  She walked in her meek noiseless way to the door.  ’I beg your pardon, Miss.  I am not quite so bad as you think me.  But I beg your pardon, all the same.’

She opened the door.  Agnes called her back.  There was something in the woman’s apology that appealed irresistibly to her just and generous nature.  ‘Come,’ she said; ’we must not part in this way.  Let me not misunderstand you.  What is it that you expected me to do?’

Emily was wise enough to answer this time without any reserve.  ’My husband will send his testimonials, Miss, to Lord Montbarry in Scotland.  I only wanted you to let him say in his letter that his wife has been known to you since she was a child, and that you feel some little interest in his welfare on that account.  I don’t ask it now, Miss.  You have made me understand that I was wrong.’