“Yes, I turned out every corner of my bag this morning to look for it.  I am so sorry, but I was so ill and so wretched, that I could not take care of anything.  I just wonder how I lived through the voyage, all alone.”

“Was there no message?  Nothing for me.”

“Yes, I have recollected it now, or some of it.  She said she durst not go home, or ask anything of you, after the way she had offended.  Oh!  I wonder how she could send me, for I know I was worse.”

“But what did she say?” said Caroline, too anxious to listen to Elvira’s own confessions.  “Was there nothing for me?”

“Yes.  She said, “Tell her that I have learnt by the bitterest of all experience the pain I have given her, and the wrong I have done!” Then there was something about being so utterly past forgiveness that she could not come to ask it.  Oh, don’t cry so, Mother Carey, we can write and get her back, and I will send her the passage money.”

“Ah! yes, write!” cried out the mother, starting up. “’When he was yet a great way off.’  Ah! why could she not remember that?” But as she sat down to her table, “You know her address?”

“Yes, certainly, I went to her lodgings once or twice; such a little bit of a room up so many stairs.”

“And you did not hear how that man, her husband, died?”

“I don’t know whether he is dead,” said this most unsatisfactory informant.  “She does not wear black, nor a cap, and I am almost sure that he has run away from her, and that is the reason she cannot use her own name.”

“Elfie!”

“O, I thought you knew!  She calls herself Mrs. Harte.  She took my passage in that name, and that must be why my things have never come.  Yes, I asked her why she did not set up for a lady doctor, and she said it was impossible that she could venture on showing her certificates or using her name-—either his or hers.”

That was in the main all that could be extracted from Elvira, though it was brought out again and again in all sorts of forms.  It was plain that Janet had been very reticent in all that regarded herself, and Elvira had only had stolen interviews, very full of her own affairs, and, besides, had supposed Janet to intend to return with her.  Both wrote; Elfie, to announce her safety, and Caroline, an incoherent, imploring, forgiving letter, such as only a mother could write, before they went out to supply Elvira’s lack of garments, and to procure the order for the sum needed for her passage.  Caroline was glad they had gone independently, for, on their return, Babie reported to her that her little Ladyship was so wroth with Elfie as to wonder at them for receiving her so affectionately.  It was very forgiving of them, but she should never forget the way in which poor Allen had been treated.

“I told her,” said Babie, “that was the way she talked about Cecil, and you should have seen her face.”  She wonders that Allen has not more spirit, and indeed, mother, I do rather wish Elfie could have come back with nothing but her little bag, so that he could have shown it would have been all the same.”