As she spoke Rachel flung out her hand with a half-defiant gesture, and Christie took it.  That touch, full of womanly compassion, seemed to exorcise the desperate spirit that possessed the poor girl in her despair, for, with a stifled exclamation, she sunk down at Christie’s feet, and lay there weeping in all the passionate abandonment of love and gratitude, remorse and shame.  Never had human voice sounded so heavenly sweet to her as that which broke the silence of the room, as this one friend said, with the earnestness of a true and tender heart: 

“Mrs. King, if you send her away, I must take her in; for if she does go back to the old life, the sin of it will lie at our door, and God will remember it against us in the end.  Some one must trust her, help her, love her, and so save her, as nothing else will.  Perhaps I can do this better than you,—­at least, I’ll try; for even if I risk the loss of my good name, I could bear that better than the thought that Rachel had lost the work of these hard years for want of upholding now.  She shall come home with me; no one there need know of this discovery, and I will take any work to her that you will give me, to keep her from want and its temptations.  Will you do this, and let me sew for less, if I can pay you for the kindness in no other way?”

Poor Mrs. King was “much tumbled up and down in her own mind;” she longed to consent, but Cotton’s eye was upon her, and Cotton’s departure would be an irreparable loss, so she decided to end the matter in the most summary manner.  Plunging a particularly large pin into her cushioned breast, as if it was a relief to inflict that mock torture upon herself, she said sharply: 

“It is impossible.  You can do as you please, Miss Devon, but I prefer to wash my hands of the affair at once and entirely.”

Christie’s eye went from the figure at her feet to the hard-featured woman who had been a kind and just mistress until now, and she asked, anxiously: 

“Do you mean that you wash your hands of me also, if I stand by Rachel?”

“I do.  I’m very sorry, but my young ladies must keep respectable company, or leave my service,” was the brief reply, for Mrs. King grew grimmer externally as the mental rebellion increased internally.

“Then I will leave it!” cried Christie, with an indignant voice and eye.  “Come, dear, we’ll go together.”  And without a look or word for any in the room, she raised the prostrate girl, and led her out into the little hall.

There she essayed to comfort her, but before many words had passed her lips Rachel looked up, and she was silent with surprise, for the face she saw was neither despairing nor defiant, but beautifully sweet and clear, as the unfallen spirit of the woman shone through the grateful eyes, and blessed her for her loyalty.

“Christie, you have done enough for me,” she said.  “Go back, and keep the good place you need, for such are hard to find.  I can get on alone; I’m used to this, and the pain will soon be over.”